


Dancing to Nothing at All

by natshana



Series: Dancing to Nothing at All [1]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: 20000 words of sexual tension, Comforting, Cuddling, Dina is a babe, Ellies a dumb feckin gay bean, F/F, Happy Ending, Living Together, Lots and lots of nicknames, Nicknames, Patching Each Other Up, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Slow Dancing, but we all love her, cooking eachother meals, its cute, the fluff stuff, theyre cute, yknow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:41:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 34,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15254637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/natshana/pseuds/natshana
Summary: The girl didn’t move, only stared, until Ellie raised the talkie she stowed at her feet and made the call.She was switched to a different position the rest of that night.Later on, she would learn that the girl’s name was Dina.She was seventeen.And she was alone.its cute i swear, just give it a shot





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i have her tattoo, might as well write about her

_“_

_She was sixteen with stars on her cheeks,_  
_Oh every time she smiled they winked at me,_  
_If I could find it out, to be with you somehow,_  
_I know sunshine would be finding me_.

_“_

 

1.

 

It rains non stop in Jackson County during the fall. From dusk till dawn, cold droplets of water pour onto the people of the settlement surrounding the hydroelectric dam like an intolerable shower for a child. Seeping into the dirt and sand, water fusing with soil, creating mudslides and little streams all throughout the small village. Soaking into clothing, turning blue jeans brown and boots a dark, pasty black.

Rain used to be her favorite, when it would rain in Boston, it would be light and chilling. Uncomfortable but freeing in the way it would mist her cheeks and drip down her hair onto her shoulders and seep only into the neckline of her tank top.

Rain in Wyoming though is sticky, and uncomfortable in the way sweat makes your shirt stick to the small of your back. Rain is endless here, for a couple months at least, and Ellie can’t wait for the day she can hang her clothes outside again and feel the sun rays warm her face and when she doesn’t have to peel her clothing from her skin each night before bed.

Ellie loves the fall, with its red and orange leaves, silently closing buds, and the smell of soil in the air.

But she hates the unrelenting force of the sky.

And after three years of this weather, she’s gotten used to marking down the days until she sees the sun again.

 

~

 

There’s a system in the settlement powered by the dam, a set schedule for each resident and a timetable to be aware of.

There are those who find use of their talents in the med bay, delicate fingers finding ease in the mending of others. From stitches to those clumsy and prescriptions for the common child with a stomach ache.

Those who find labor more encouraging, helping keep the fence around the border in working order and who help with repairs around the land. This includes, but not restricted to, plumbing issues, broken furniture, and the never-ending array of electrical issues.

There’s gardening and cooking and animal keeping, sewing and cleaning and security.

There’s a job for everyone, a _place_ for everyone, as Tommy would say.

Ellie’s place, on the other hand, wasn’t as easy.

Ellie didn’t enjoy being cooped up in a small village, behind towering walls and men with guns. She did not like the feeling of being surveyed when she was younger, and she sure as hell didn’t like it now. So the place she found herself in, was patrolling.

Or at least, it’s the place she would _like_ to find herself in if they let residents under eighteen actually go on patrols. But until then, she was stuck at fence duty. Surveying the land from watchtowers positioned along the fence. Keeping an eye out for bandits or wildlife that were always an issue in maintaining their peaceful and delicate order.

Ellie stood most evenings, at the northeast watch post, overlooking the land from which the river came. With a rifle strapped to her back, and an old leather jacket keeping her warm. A jacket Joel had given to her when she had grown enough to fit its sleeves. It was lined with a soft flannel material, and while weathered, the jacket still kept most of the rain from soaking her clothing beneath it. For as progressive as the village seemed, they still hadn’t figured out how to put roofs on the damn watchtowers.

She and Joel had been living in the quaint town with Tommy and his wife and their newborn son for the better of three years. After the endeavor with the fireflies, they were shacked up in a small house on the outside of town square.

It wasn’t huge, just a house with two rooms, a kitchen, living area, and bathroom.

But it was more than Ellie had ever owned before.

And as much as she loathed the town, Ellie couldn’t help but smile every time she would come home to a warm house, smelling of a hot meal on the stove, and alluded in an atmosphere of soft music.

 

~

 

The settlement didn’t have a name, or at least, nobody had really thought one up. It was usually referred to as Tommy’s Place, or more commonly, The Dam.

The Dam had a total of 114 residents, ranging from eight-months-old to seventy-two. And funnily enough, only three teenagers.

There was Ellie, who was only a month away from eighteen. Cory, fourteen. And Jesse, nineteen.

To say she was lonely, was an understatement. But Ellie didn’t see it that way. She was used to the solitude, the quiet of one's own mind. It had been just recently that she built a strong enough relationship with Joel. And with it being years since she had had a true friendship, even a rocky one at that, Ellie didn’t _feel_ lonely.

Most times.

She didn’t feel lonely as she made breakfast with Joel in the morning.

She didn’t feel lonely when she would help Ms. Margaret with the cows and goats each morning.

She didn’t feel lonely when she arrived at her shift, wherever that would be each day.

At those times, she felt accomplished. Fulfilled with the idea that she was being useful to the small community built around her.

But when she went through the line midday at the town’s food station and smiled as Gloria would hand Ellie her lunch.  When she would sit at the base of the willow tree that neighbored the horse corral. Between the roots that rose from the dirt and curled together before disappearing again, and under the shade of branches so thick they were dark. Eating her lunch and watching little Tommy and Oliver kick a slightly deflated soccer ball in the one grassy area of town.

When she would eat alone, more often than not, and when she would walk alone, more often than not, and when she would go home _alone_.

Did she feel the twinge of longing for someone she could talk to.

Who she could laugh with.

Who she could smile at because of an inside joke.

Ellie wasn’t lonely.

 _Most_ of the time.

 

~

 

The girl arrived late one evening when the ground was so soft you sank in it and the sun had set only behind the trees so everything was just glowing.

She emerged from the tree line, about ten yards from the fence and two hours into Ellie’s shift at the eastern post above the side gate. Her head was covered by the hood of her torn and soaked hoodie, and she didn’t carry a single thing besides a backpack and a hunter's knife tucked into her belt loop.

Ellie hadn’t even been sure it _was_ a girl until she got close enough to the fence that Ellie could see her eyes, and her weathered expression, and her shape.

The girl didn’t move, only stared, until Ellie raised the talkie she stowed at her feet and made the call.

She was switched to a different position the rest of that night.

Later on, she would learn that the girl’s name was Dina.

She was seventeen.

And she was alone.

 

~

 

 

For the next two weeks after the girl, after _Dina_ , arrived, she was put into the shelter by the main gate. It was a small building, with nothing in it but a few cots and shelves for supplies. The settlers only ever used it to hold newcomers until they were assigned a job, and later a residence if they proved themselves trustworthy.

(Sometimes the place was used for reappointed families whose house was lost in a bandit causality but that was rare.)

Ellie would see her around after that, occasionally. The first few days Dina kept to herself, always tucked away. But as the weeks progressed Ellie saw her smiling more and getting along with just about everyone.

Ellie tried to stay out of the girl’s way, she really did. When she would see Dina walking through town or working at the med bay, which is where they found a use for her after word spread that she had some practice in first aid. Ellie never approached her. Never spoke to her.

But Ellie noticed her.

She noticed the way she kept her long dark hair kept up behind her head (and the shorter pieces that always curled around her ears). She noticed the way Dina smiled crookedly when speaking to any of the older gentlemen. And the way she smiled warmly at most of the older women.

It wasn’t her fault for noticing. Dina was just, _there_ . And _everywhere_.

It didn’t seem to matter where Ellie was, she would always notice the girl close by. She didn’t know if it was because ever since the night that she let the girl through the gate and watched her be taken to Tommy’s office that her brain had a keen sense to notice her. Or if it was something else, something deeper that she didn’t want to think about.

Maybe it was just because Ellie thought Dina was pretty, but that’s because she _was._ Ellie isn’t blind, the girl was gorgeous, especially after she showered and cleared away the dirt and oil accumulated over who knows how long.

Anyhow, Dina seemed to be a new constant in Ellie’s daily routine. And she didn’t know if she liked that.

 

~

 

“She’s being placed in unit 3, building 6. Jesse said you’ve been getting antsy just standing at the fence so I figure you can have a break tonight. Get her settled in and you can have the rest of your night to yourself.”

Tommy moved around his office, he was gathering different folders as he spoke to her about the schedule change. His face was a tad older than when she had first met him. It wasn’t age of course, for it had only been a few years, Ellie knew it was from the stress of running an entire settlement that had done it to him.

At times she felt bad for him, for the load he had to deal with every day. But she also knew that no one else could run this place as smoothly as he could. So she just made sure to smile at him every time she saw him, hoping in some sorts that he would understand just how grateful she and everyone else was for his work.

“I have not been _antsy_ , the fence just gets kind of boring sometimes. Why are you making _me_ do it? There are other people here who are way better at this sort of thing.” Her arms were crossed as she lent in his doorway. She was still upset that when she’d arrived at her post that evening she’d found an irritated Teresa sitting in a chair, directing her back to Tommy’s office.

“This sort of thing?” Tommy smiled teasingly. He’d paused in his shuffling to glance at her.

“Yes, the _people_ thing.” Ellie ground it out irritably. “Why not have Cory do it? He doesn’t even have a job yet.”

“Cory’s fourteen and doesn’t know his hand from his ass on how to get around this place.”

“Yeah, well it’s just-“

“Listen, kiddo,” Ellie sighed and lent back against the doorway. She hates that the nickname seemed to have been appropriated from Joel. “There aren’t a lot of kids your age in this place. I just want her to feel more welcome. And I _know_ , people might not be your _thing_ , but I figured having another girl and someone close to her age would just help her... adjust. Y’know?”

Tommy sighed, setting down the stack of papers he’d accumulated as he leaned against his desk with both hands. “Could you just do it for _me_? It’s just a simple walk to the house, you don’t have to do anything other than that.”

The gaze he fixed her with was pleading, and her exterior wasn’t as strong as she pretended it was.

She was just a glutton for punishment.

“Fine, but only ‘cause you said I get the rest of the night off.” Ellie feigned annoyance but Tommy just smiled.

“That’s it, sport. Now off with you, I have to help Barry with this intake problem and I’m sure your girl is getting tired of staying in an empty building with nothin’ to do.”

Ellie scurried away after that, his words settling with an odd feeling in her gut.

  


She found Dina a little while later as she approached the newcomer’s building. The place was dark and shambling, but the sun was still up, if just barely, so it made the whole place kind of warm with an orange aura. Dina was outside the building, sitting on the steps with a book in her lap and Ellie couldn’t help but stare for the few steps she took to get to her.

Dina’s hair was up as usual, and the small, dark curls stuck to her skin from the sweat of a day's work. She had gotten new clothing since she’d arrived, gathering either hand-me-downs from the locals or whatever she could scrounge in the supply building. It was mostly sweaters and jeans, but they all fit her so damn well that Ellie couldn’t help it but notice. She currently had on jeans and a normal, dark green T-shirt; the sleeves fraying at the elbows.

Dina must have heard her boots sloshing in the mud as Ellie approached because the girl’s head lifted and their eyes met for the first time since the night Dina had appeared from the trees.

Her eyes were a dark gray, almost brown, a color usually deemed barren and ghostly but to Ellie, it was like the murky water from a lake that had just been rained in. Like the fog that laid in the treetops on early mornings.

“Hey you're the girl that was on the fence, right? The one who called in the cavalry and had my ass drug off for interrogation.”

It was a joke, and Dina smiled through a teasing smirk.

When Ellie finally stood about a foot from the girl did she smile softly, a little forced as she tried not to seem too irritated at the girl’s presence. It wasn’t Dina exactly, but at the situation surrounding her and the task at hand. “That’d be me.”

Seeming to realize that would be the only answer she’d get, Dina smiled wider and extended a hand from the book she had put down at her side. Her body turning from the splayed-out position so that she could rest her feet on the next step down.

“I’m Dina.”

“So I’ve heard.” Ellie took a moment before reaching down to grab her hand. It was soft, and she didn’t like that _that_ was what crossed her mind first.

Dina’s eyes traced the tattoo spiraling along her forearm and Ellie watched her mouth open a bit in a quiet awe. “That’s beautiful.”

“Thanks.” Ellie withdrew her hand before stuffing it into her jacket’s pocket. When Dina’s gaze finally turned back to her, she had a quizzical expression to it. And Ellie couldn’t help but feel like a nervous fish out of water.

She didn’t do the people thing.

“I’m Ellie. By the way, from earlier, the, yeah.”

She _really_ didn’t do the people thing.

But Dina just smiled again, not as playfully this time but in a mild way that set the queasy feeling in Ellie’s stomach to rest.

“So _I’ve_ heard.”

More teasing.

Dina didn’t say anything after that and Ellie shifted in her step before nodding, finally looking away from the girl below her that wouldn’t stop smirking and around at the barren roads behind them. It was dinner time, not many were out and about.

“Tommy’s said you have a place in unit three, wants me to take you to it.”

“A place?” Dina raised an eyebrow as she got up from her seat and dusted off her jeans. Standing on the step gave her about an inch or two above Ellie.

“Yeah, a house, dingus.”

“Oh, I’m not supposed, to stay in this shabby building forever?” Dina threw a thumb behind her at the door which hung sideways in its frame. “And name calling already, to think I was just starting to like you, Stretch.”

Ellie rolled her eyes, turning so that her body pointed more towards the road. “It’s down this way, do you need help moving anything?”

“Seeing as all I got is a backpack,” Dina paused in the doorway leading back into the building, her one hand hanging onto the door for balance as she leaned back on a single foot, “I think I’ll manage.” She winked and disappeared into the confines.

Ellie sighed, fully turning to the street now, counting each of the lit windows as the sun now began to set. They were like small, glowing dots against a dark canvas. Little beacons of hope down a slowly dimming path.  She liked this time of day and the quiet that followed it. Knowing that even if most of the world had gone to shit, at least everyone here wasn’t cold, and were not alone.

  


The journey to unit three was mostly uneventful if you didn’t count the never-ending questions coming from Dina. Who seemed thoroughly eager to get to know her new companion. She learned about Joel and about what Ellie did. She now understood why Ellie was up there that night she first arrived. By the time they arrived in the correct unit, Dina was pretty knowledgeable about the small routine Ellie called a life.

“Here it is, sixth house down in unit three.” Ellie came to a stop outside a single-story house, painted a heavy green, a lot like the shirt Dina currently wore.

Fitting.

It didn’t have much of a porch, and from what they could see it had a decent sized grass yard behind it. Everything else about it seemed desolate though, a bit empty, as it was.

Dina had hold of each of the straps keeping the pack on her shoulders. And she took a moment considering the place before nodding. “Seems decent, shall we head in?”

“We?” Ellie was already tired of this evening, and turning to look at Dina who smiled back in return, was only a tad discouraging.

“Well yeah. If it hadn’t been apparent, I don’t have many people keeping me company. And you don’t seem half bad.” Dina shrugged and looked over at the taller girl next to her.

“Thanks.” Ellie gave her a deadpan expression.

“It was a compliment.” Dina laughed and shoved her shoulder. The action was unexpected and nearly tripped the poor girl.

“Sure seemed so,” Ellie grumbled as she regained her balance and stared at her boots, her hands hadn’t left her pockets. The more she thought about it though, the offer wasn’t terrible. And Dina wasn’t the worst person to hang out with it seemed.

In the last fifteen minutes, Ellie had spoken more than she had probably all year. And it was nice.

Dina was looking at her so encouragingly that Ellie sighed heavily and raised her shoulders. “But hell, why not. Tommy gave me the rest’ the night off and there ain’t much else to do in this shithole.”

Dina jumped at the answer and shoved Ellie gently from behind, “then lead on, Casanova.”

  


The house was quaint. Meaning it was small, and a little cold from the lack of use, but it had furniture and a bed a decent sized kitchen. So really, what more could one ask for in a post-apocalyptic world.

Dina was quiet as they explored the house, which was a stark contrast to how the rest of the evening had been.

Ellie almost missed the chatter.

Almost.

Dina took her time exploring each area. Running her hand along the back of a worn sofa, noticeably used but in the way you knew it was broken-in more than broken. Dina touched everything she could, like it was a foreign object she had just discovered for the first time. Her fingertips ghosted along the marble countertops and traced patterns on the matte walls as they walked down the hall. She turned on every light and tested every faucet and Ellie thought she saw the girl’s jaw clench when she realized the house had a running shower.

She took her time through the place as Ellie realized Dina had never seen quite a thing like it.

The same feeling Ellie had when she’d arrived.

Of course, they’d all seen houses on the road, but it’s different when you’re in a community. When there are fifteen-foot walls surrounding the place, it has a different air to it. It’s not just a resting place. It’s an actual _house_ . It’s _safe_ and _livable_ and _yours_.

It’s different from out there because in here the building becomes more than a house, it becomes a _home_.

Only when they had finally seen every square inch of the place did Dina finally set down her bag in the single bedroom. On the bed that was made with the only set of sheets the house probably owned. Ellie stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, watching the movement.

She hadn’t said a word the entire time they had been in the house. But she didn’t feel it her place. This was Dina’s time to really comprehend what this settlement meant for her.

It was an experience Ellie went through but never watched.

It was magical almost — even though that sounds cheesy, it was. Watching Dina’s eyes soften to unshed tears and watching her tremble at each new discovery was... thrilling, to say the least. Ellie watched as the girl’s walls broke for fractions of seconds, her vulnerability peaking out at the realization of a newly grasped comfort.

It felt almost intrusive.

For Ellie didn’t even know Dina but yet she was allowing Ellie to watch this, to experience _this_ with her.

It was yet another thing to sit uncomfortably in Ellie’s gut. So when Dina set down her bag, Ellie cleared her throat.

“Have you eaten?”

 

~

 

Having dinner with Dina became a daily thing after the day Ellie took Dina home. If it were at Ellie’s place or the shorter girls, one of them would find the other and they would find someplace to eat. Sometimes they would actually cook.

The first night, Ellie had invited Dina back to her and Joel’s place for dinner. Having heard of Ellie’s shift change, Joel had already started on the meal when they’d arrived. He was surprised, to say the least, when Ellie walked in with the new girl trailing behind her. But he quickly got to making an extra plate and in no time they were sat at the dining table idly chatting. Joel was better with people than Ellie was, so she sat quietly as the two chatted. It was entrancing to watch, and it made the meal just that more familiar and earnest. It had been some time since she’d seen Joel smile and laugh like that.

And Dina, Dina was an entirely different experience than she had ever encountered. Ellie wasn’t sure what to do with that feeling, or with her.

When she spoke, Dina’s eyes lit up with a fire that would burn if not careful. Her words were sharp and intuitive, but so _kind_ none could take any offense. Dina spoke her mind, about _everything_ , and Ellie was astounded. She was astounded and utterly breathless by this ethereal being that had walked into her life.

Dina was soft with hard edges, laughter without humor, and beauty without physicality.

Ellie had _no_ idea what to do with this new company, and yet that next day, as she sat surveying from the northeast post, Dina found her and invited her to dinner again. At her place this time, since Joel had a patrol that evening.

Dina promised to cook.

And it took Ellie but two seconds to agree.

She didn’t think she ever could’ve denied the offer.

Ellie didn’t think she could ever want to.

 

~

 

It was getting colder. The air and the ground and the sky were all getting colder and Ellie hated it. It reminded her of a time she did not like to think about and when the first snow came, she hadn’t left her room the entire day.

When you’re a kid, snow is fun. You get to spend all day playing in the light fluff and going inside to a warm house when the chill becomes too much. When you’re a child you get treated to hot chocolate flooding with marshmallows and a mountain of blankets.

It’s not like that as you grow older.

Now when the chill became too much, Ellie didn’t have a choice but to stay outside. And yes, there were the fire barrels everywhere to try and keep the concept of warmth alive. But she didn’t have time to stop and warm herself by one.

Ellie was busy, she had errands, she had work. And the thick jacket only did so much, along with her boots. Her days started at six in the morning and ended at nine in the evening and she was completely frozen by the end of each one.

Working on the fence never helped. There you were restricted to the outdoors, and since they _still_ hadn’t figured out how to put roofs on the damn towers, she had to shovel the entire platform off if she didn’t want to be sitting in a pool of ice.

This night, in particular, was rough, because it decided to start snowing _on_ her shift so she constantly had to shake the fresh powder from where it claimed territory on her shoulders. Her fingers were frozen and curled into her pockets. The same with her toes and about every other ligament of her body. Ellie didn’t know how they expected her to keep watch when she could barely wrap her hands around the barrel of her rifle, let alone pull the trigger.

But she didn’t complain, she didn’t mention it, she just endured.

So Ellie sat and watched as the sun began to sink behind the treetops. Silently praying she didn’t die of frostbite.

“Hey, Stretch!”

The voice called from behind and below her, someone on the ground, and even without the nickname, Ellie knew immediately who it was.

“Is that the name you’re gonna stick with?” She yelled but didn’t turn around to give the girl satisfaction of getting under her skin.

“Well it’s that or cutie, and I kinda figured the latter wouldn’t sit as well would it?” The voice was teasing, but Ellie was ever grateful she hadn’t turned around, even if she could blame her reddening skin on the cold weather.

“What do you want, Dina?” Ellie finally turned in her seat and saw Dina leaning with her back against the tower. Her black hair was tucked beneath a red beanie and her waist was clad in a thick purple parka.

“Little aggressive but fine,” Dina muttered under her breath and Ellie had to forcibly stop her eyes from rolling back into her skull. “I was just wondering what your plans for tonight were?” Dina smiled up at her, and Ellie couldn’t help but trace her soft features in this sharpening weather. The snow sparkled against her cheeks where it melted and Ellie had to wake up before she fell out of the chair she sat in.

“Well usually when I get off my shift, I make dinner with this extremely annoying, and highly arrogant vixen before I head off to sleep. You?”

“Vixen, huh? You think I’m foxy?” Dina smirked up at her and Ellie actually did roll her eyes before turning back around in her seat.

“After that whole thing, _that’s_ what you decided to focus on?” She checked around at the border and the fence line before returning her gaze to the girl just below her.

“Sorry babe, but I’m an optimist.” Dina wasn’t looking at her anymore but Ellie could _hear_ the smirk in her voice.

It was aggravating.

 _She_ was aggravating.

Yet she continued to hang out with her.

“9:30 as usual?” Ellie gave up the argument. If it's one thing she's learned in the past couple of weeks dealing with Dina, it’s that the girl _never_ backs down from a fight.

“You know it.” The black haired girl stayed positioned below her, watching the town with her back still against the tower.

“Did you just come here to bug me?”

She only heard a teasing hum of confirmation rise from the ground.

Ellie sighed, “great.”

 

~

 

Ellie was surprised when she heard a gasp behind her after she’d entered her room. She and Dina had just finished having dinner with Joel and Ellie’d ran upstairs to grab a jacket before heading out.

This sort of thing had become normal to them, dinner and then a walk home. Dina didn’t live far from them but Ellie thought it was only polite she walk her back every night. She also didn’t mind getting to spend just that much more time with the girl, Ellie had grown to really enjoy the company.

But as Ellie reached for her jacket, hanging from the hook next to her closet, she heard Dina enter quietly behind her and then intake quickly.

“Oh my god, you have a record player?” Ellie turned to see Dina quickly cross the room to where the player sat, vinyls stacked vertically on the desk next to it.

“Yeah, it came with the house.” She unhooked her jacket and pulled it to her chest as Dina started to sift through the different albums she had. Her face was lit with pure pleasure and elation at the discovery, and she made quick work of reading through the titles.

Ellie’s chest hammered at how pretty Dina looked in that moment.

“God, I haven’t listened to some of these since…” She faltered at that for a second, her brows creasing before the smile returned, a little forced this time, “it’s just been a while.”

Ellie came up behind her after the stumble, she reached across and lifted one of the soft casings. Its title was almost too worn to read but she’d listened to it enough times that she knew the cover without it. “Would you like to listen to one?”

Dina had become quiet, her eyes fixed on the rows, her fingers slowly moving the casings one by one as she read their covers.

Ellie didn’t think she was actually reading any of them.

“Yeah, I would like that.” Her eyes lifted and Ellie thought she could see relief swirling behind the brown, relief and expectation and a little hollowness. But they were warm.

Her eyes were always warm.

So Ellie carefully unsheathed the record and hooked it onto the metal rod of the player. She could feel Dina’s eyes following her hands as she switched the machine on and lifted the stylus carefully to its spot at the beginning of the vinyl.

The air crackled as the small needle found its place along the grooves of the disk, chasing a song etched in a maze of carved shellac.

It wasn’t long before the soft undertones of a bass filled the air, followed by a guitar and then drums and then a soft voice. The machine wasn’t loud, Ellie never liked it loud, so she could still hear the shallow breaths of the girl positioned right beside her shoulder. The girl who was close enough that the air around them had become warm and electric from body heat.

After a minute, Dina finally spoke. She spoke so quietly and so softly and so _close_ that Ellie shivered when the girl’s breath tickled her neck from the proximity.

“I know you want to ask.”

Ellie looked at her then, turning her neck and not much of her body to look into the murky but warm eyes. “About what?”

“My history, how I came to be here. Everyone does. I can see it when they’re talking to me, a question on their tongue that’s never spoken.”

Dina looks tired at this moment. Ellie notices that. She notices how _tired_ Dina looks right now, with her shoulders slumped and her hair frizzy from the day.

“I don’t want to know anything you don’t want to tell me,” Ellie looks at Dina earnestly, or tries to at least. She’s not entirely sure how to form that expression but she tries desperately to let Dina know that she understands.

“I know you, Ellie. I know how curious you are. Even when you pretend to be disinterested, I see those little gears working behind your eyes.” Dina tries to joke but it falls flat.

“I’m serious, you don’t have to tell me anything.”

“I know,” Dina’s eyes flicker between hers, “but I want to.”

With that Dina breathes in and looks away, back down at the still spinning record and at the stacked ones beside it. “For now though, can we just chill? Just for a bit before we head back to my place?”

Ellie nods, because what else can she do.

And she watches Dina cross her room to her bed and fall onto it heavily, her head near the middle and her legs still hanging off the bed. Because what else can she do.

And Ellie follows her, copying her position oppositely. Their heads nestled together, almost touching. Ellie could feel the dip of Dina’s shoulders above her head, the small curls around Dina’s ears tickling her cheeks.

Her ceiling was cracked and stained from its age and years without care. Ellie’s eyes traced the lines back and forth from one corner of the room to another. They memorized the shape and color of each stain and she tracked the dirt that caked between each peeling of paint. The paint was supposed to be tan she thought but wasn’t sure. She looked at the ceiling, and felt the warmth from the body beside her, and listened to a chorus of instruments flow from the small speaker of the player in the corner.

Dina smelled of jasmine, and like a pine forest without a breeze.

And Ellie noticed.

Because what else could she do.

  


“I’ve never told anyone.”

Ellie lay quietly, the record had ended a bit ago, in need of flipping, so the needle spun silently except for the occasional crackle.

“I’ve never _needed_ to, never _wanted_ to.”

“You don’t have-“

“ _Ellie_.”

Ellie didn’t try to speak again after that.

It took a moment for Dina to talk again, and when she did she told Ellie of where she grew up, a quarantine zone in Portland. She told her of the pregnancy that forced her family to flee the city. She told her of the childbirth that took her mother, and the heartbreak that soon after took her father. Dina told Ellie of her solitude, and of her vestige in the world beyond their walls.

Dina was twelve when she lost her home and family and had somehow managed to survive by herself throughout the remaining years. Until she heard of a settlement at a nearby trading post and had ended up where she was now, lying in a bed next to Ellie.

They were quiet again after the confession, simply existing in the quiet aftermath and stirring in a now shared knowledge. They had moved during Dina’s story, so that they were sitting correctly on the bed, resting with their heads against the pillows. Dina lay so that her head laid nestled in the crook of her arm, while Ellie towered over the girl a bit, resting her head on an elbow.

“Was it everything it was cracked up to be?” This was the first time Ellie had spoken since the beginning.

“Was what?” Dina tilted her head, as much as she could, up at Ellie. While her fingers traced odd shapes on the bed sheets.

“The settlement.” Ellie watched Dina watch her dancing fingers.

The shorter girl thought for a moment, considering the simple question that Ellie had introduced to her.

“It’s not what I had expected, that’s for sure,” Dina finally looked up at Ellie, her eyes were sparkling again. They were still warm, but now it was like a blazing campfire and it was completely engulfing Ellie in flames. “It has its benefits, though.”

Once again, both of them lay there. Simply basking in the other’s company. Dina was looking her, not intensely but also not _not_ intensely. It was like she was considering her.

“What about you, Stretch? How’d you come to dwell here?” Dina got up to flip the record as Ellie relaxed further into the bed.

“That’s a _long_ story.” Ellie sighed, thinking through what she could possibly tell the other girl.

“We got time.”

The needle touched the surface of the maze again. And as the song crackled to life, so did Ellie’s story.

 

  
They didn’t comfort each other after both of them got quiet, they just laid in an understanding of loss. Comfort without touch, without words. They didn’t speak after the last word had left Ellie’s lips, they just looked at one another. The nervousness one feels of watching another was absent. A conversation without words.

Brown to green and green to brown.

A new album spun behind them, quietly, and popping on obtrusive particles of dust.

They must have fallen asleep like that because the next thing Ellie knew she woke alone, with the sheets cold around her and the dawn peeking its way through her curtains.

The record player found a new home not two days later.

 

~

 

When Ellie turned eighteen in late November, her body was _aching_ to explore beyond the walls. It was like an over-encompassing feeling of unwelcome in her bones that screamed and clawed at her skin from within. Her body wanted out, her mind wanted out, _Ellie_ wanted out.

She wanted to _run_ and _breathe_ and feel _free_ for the first time in three years.

The day of her birthday, when she hadn’t slept a wink the night before, Jesse had approached her at the Reassignment Station. And that was that. Her first patrol was a week later, after a few training sessions on how to work with a group and how to coordinate the area along with the trip back home.

Ellie was elated.

And when she told Dina that night at dinner, there was something under the girl’s voice that gave her concern. Dina was happy for her, it seemed. She smiled as Ellie excitedly relayed what Jesse had discussed with her and she hugged Ellie that night as she left home.

But there was something _wrong_ with Dina’s behavior, and Ellie couldn’t for the life of her figure out what it was.

But she went on her first patrol five days later, and for the first time since Ellie had stepped through the gates of The Dam, did she feel like she’d found her _place_.

 

~

 

Dina’s house started to become more than their occasional dinner spot. Soon, Dina’s quaint living space, with its small bedroom and smaller kitchen,  became like a second home to Ellie.

She no longer went straight to her and Joel’s place when she got back from a patrol. Now, her journey took her muddy boots and two-day-old clothing to Dina’s, where the girl would scrunch her nose at Ellie’s foul smell and shove her towards the bathroom.

They would make dinner most every night there, and Dina would sit on the counter as Ellie cooked and relayed her day to her. Ellie would sit in a chair at the dining table as Dina did the same. Dina’s days always seemed far more interesting and Ellie loved listening to her. Maybe Dina was just a better storyteller.

On days that Ellie was free from patrol, the girl would browse the town’s market and make Dina breakfast. Getting eggs from Miller’s Farm and the occasional strip of bacon from Ms. Margaret. She would make Dina pancakes if she could and even tried at an omelet once but was only laughed at when it ended up on the floor.

Dina stepped to her tiptoes and kissed her cheek lightly when that had happened, whispering a quiet, “You tried your best, Stretch,” before making the two of them bowls of grits.

Ellie’s face _burned_ at that.

In the backyard, nothing but a decent sized square of grass and weeds, was where Dina would do her wash. And after a while of course, where the two of them would do it together. Though it as rare for the both of them to be home midday at the same time, one or the other would spend the afternoon scrubbing their clothing in the wash tub and stringing it along the line stretched for drying. It was here that Ellie felt at peace the most because, before that, Joel was the one that did the wash. She’d never known the feeling to simply work quietly for an afternoon, to feel her hands raw from the scrubbing and the water. But not raw as in angry and red and painful, but a raw softness that left her hands tender to the touch and warm to the feel.

The small house had come with a small television in the corner of the living room as well, right in front of the worn couch. There weren’t, of course, channels to stream from anymore — though it still had that function. But it had a single DVD player hooked up to it and every once in a while the two would check out a movie from the trading post in town.

It was interesting to Ellie, watching the TV crackle to life as the video opened up with trailers of movies that would never be never released. There had been small videos for military training, back in Boston, but it had only been once or twice that she’d been able to watch a full movie.

It was — enthralling. Watching a story take place without its consequences and happenings affect her own life. The rapidly moving pictures and sometimes horrid acting brought a new safe haven to the taller girl. She’d never felt so content before to sit hours upon end and just watch, just listen. As a whole new world was brought to life before her in technicolor and minuscule pixels.

Dina felt the same, Ellie thought, but not in the same way it did for her. Dina was engrossed with the lives and the people she saw on screen, not entranced with the whole of it like Ellie. She felt a connection to each character and each family in a way that Ellie didn’t quite understand, but it made their discussions afterward all the more liberating.

That is if they could have a discussion after it. For more than not, Dina would fall asleep before the movie even ended. Though Ellie didn’t mind, she was already overwhelmed with the fact that Dina enjoyed cuddling together under a blanket while they watched. With Dina curled under her arm every night and another wrapped tight around her stomach, Ellie had a very short list of things which bugged her during that time.

When the girl next to her would begin to nod off, finally leaning fully into Ellie’s side and resting her head in the crook of the freckled girl’s neck, Ellie would simply turn the movie to its lowest volume and settle in for a long hour of restless stillness.

Dina was beautiful while she slept, all worries erased from her features and her lips parted with soft breaths. Her skin was always _so_ soft and her body warm where it curled around Ellie’s. And it was the only time Ellie could look at her without nervousness or fear of showing too much in her gaze.

When the movie would end, Ellie would simply shift the girl sleeping against her and lift her body into the air to carry back to her bedroom. Dina’s head would rest gently against her shoulder and if she was awake enough, sometimes the girl’s arms would circle her neck and cling there.

It was one of the only times Ellie prided herself on being strong enough to carry another person. And having the shorter girl in her arms, clinging and curling to her, gave Ellie a feeling she still couldn’t comprehend. It made her weak and emboldened all at the same time.

It made her want to carry Dina to her room every night. To tuck her into a bed of soft blankets and leave with a small touch of the lips to her forehead.

It made her feel important.

 _Truly_ important. For the first time in a _long_ time.

 

 

 

~

 

When Ellie would come home some evenings, her body would be bloody and battered. But Ellie hated the med bay. She hated the sterile walls and smell of cleaning fluids. They turned her stomach and made her panic every single time she stepped in there. So she just stopped going.

Dina, of course, wasn’t happy with this. But because Dina worked there daily, she got used to patching Ellie up at home instead of the infirmary. They now had a permanent suture and first aid kit on the counter in the kitchen.

Ellie knew it terrified Dina every time she came home hobbling or nursing a wound along her body. She knew that Dina held it together every single time Ellie would walk through the door heavily and lean against the frame until the shorter girl helped her up on the counter.

Dina hated it, but she knew how Ellie felt about the med bay. So she pushed it down and worked through it for the girl who always seemed worse for wear.

  


There was an evening where Ellie returned stumbling. A bandit attack gone wrong. Their patrol was only supposed to go to the second town over and back but they’d been interrupted by a pack of raiders who thought they seemed takable.

They weren’t, obviously. But one of them had gotten Ellie right along her midsection, with a hunter’s knife sharpened so, it easily peeled back Ellie’s shirt and sliced right into her exposed stomach. It wasn’t deep, thankfully, but it was long and she collapsed right as the guy was taken down by another member of her patrol.

They had rested there that night, and slowly trekked back home the following morning.

When Ellie had arrived at Dina’s place, the girl had still been on shift at the med bay. So Ellie did what she could at cleaning herself up in the bathroom.

That, of course, only lasted a good ten minutes before the door to the house slammed open — she forgot the rest of her team had most likely gone straight to the clinic.

Ellie listened as the door slammed against the wall it hung from and a quick shut after. She listened from where she leaned against the small counter in the bathroom, with the faucet pouring down the sink. Her body sagged from wear as she used all her strength to dab at the cuts along her face and hold herself up on shaking legs. Fast footsteps echoed through the house until they stopped at the doorway right behind her.

Ellie could see Dina’s frantic expression in the mirror as she looked her over. And the wash rag fell into the sink, its contents turning the water a sickly red.

“God you idiot.” Ellie heard that, and she looked sorrowfully at Dina when the girl came up behind her and helped lift Ellie’s arm around her shoulders to tug the broken girl to the kitchen. “You fucking idiot.” She heard that too.

Dina made quick work of Ellie after that. Sitting the beaten girl at the table in the tiled kitchen while she gathered the necessary supplies. Dina wiped the rest of Ellie’s face clean from dirt and blood. And she used small bandages to keep the cuts in place.

Ellie sighed at the touch, even though it hurt as hell, and she watched Dina’s troubled eyes as the girl worked. Ellie could watch her eyes forever if she could, she would drown in them and feel comfort in the all-encompassing murky warmth.

Dina was making her way quickly down Ellie’s arms when she noticed how soaked Ellie’s T-shirt was, and how it wasn’t somebody else’s blood that had done it. “ _Ellie_ ,” Dina gasped, her voice high. Ellie had never heard Dina yell, her voice never raised enough to actually reach that level, but at this moment, it was close.

Dina gently touched Ellie’s stomach and the freckled girl winced, curling back into the chair as far as she could go.

“You _fucking_ idiot.” The girl muttered angrily before taking hold of the edges of Ellie’s shirt.

And then her shirt was lifted above her head and Ellie froze while Dina quickly started work on the gouge along her stomach.

Like this was normal.

Ellie saw her wasted shirt tossed on the table and she could feel the cold air on her skin combat with the sweat and blood that rested there. And she could see Dina all the while, she could see Dina working at wiping away the blood along her stomach and she could feel a burning blush rise from her chest and up to her ears.

Ellie was shirtless in front of Dina.

What a childish thing to think, she knew. But _god_ , this was _Dina_.

Dina’s fingers danced around the cut along her stomach and Ellie shuddered at the feeling. She’d never had someone touch her there before, never so softly or so delicately. It was such a strange and intense feeling all at once that Ellie held her breath the duration of Dina’s work. Only remembering to fill her lungs every time the girl crouched in front of her would glare upwards.

If Dina felt any inclination to feeling uncomfortable with this situation she made no notion towards it.

When Ellie’s stomach was finally patched up with a new listing of ten stitches — little twists of string that Dina fought Ellie over for a good fifteen minutes before the black-haired girl had told her to “shut up” and then patched Ellie up anyways — did Dina finally hesitate.

It was when her hands smoothly applied a bandage, and she sat back on her heels from her crouched position, did Ellie finally see a flicker of _something_ in her eyes. Eyes that trailed from the bandage along her toned abdomen to the soft skin below her ribs to a chest still wrapped in Ellie’s sports bra to, finally, her freckled collarbones. It took what seemed forever before Dina finally looked at _her._

And then that’s all either of them could do.

They stared as Ellie’s ragged breaths filled the quiet air and her pulse quickened under such an intense gaze. They stared until Dina’s eyes flicked to somewhere slightly below Ellie’s.

But then there was a shout outside, and the two of them gasped before Dina quickly stood up and gathered the soaked rags and other supplies scattered around the table.

“You should’ve gone to the med bay.”

And then she was gone down the hall with the closed kit in her hands and a bare Ellie still gasping for breath at the table.

Her skin was cold and a blazing red.

They never mentioned this moment again.

Ellie still didn’t go to the clinic.

 

~

 

There was an evening when the two worked in the backyard, unclipping their hanging clothing from the clothesline, folding, and then setting them in the correct baskets when Dina mentioned gardening.

It was an offhand comment, something one would bring up in conversation and then let rest. But it was something that stuck in Ellie’s head for days on end.

Dina told Ellie that she used to keep small plants at her home back in Portland. Nothing bigger than a tomato plant, but enough that she always had food for her family when they would cook. Small things like mint and basil, but enough that it made life just _that_ more worth it.

Dina discussed her love for plants, for gardening, and how she’d one day love to turn this yard into something of the sorts. And the idea just _stook_ , in Ellie’s mind. This happened a lot with her, ideas that would spring up and stay until a determined Ellie made them reality. Like her idea to find a certain album Dina liked while on patrol, the idea of getting the sheep's den in order at Ms. Margaret’s, the idea of putting roofs on the watch posts until she up and built them herself.

When Ellie got an idea, a _plan_ , in her mind. There was no stopping it. Dina would often call Ellie an unrelenting river that could not be bent no matter how high a damn. Ellie liked it when she called her that. It made her feel powerful.

So Ellie made up her mind not more than the very next Friday. She was going to help the shorter girl start the beginning of a flourishing garden. No matter what it cost to do so.

And Ellie did.

They had a few farms around The Dam, three farms used for orchards and plants such as to feed the townspeople. And one that was used for more medicinal uses, small plants that were then turned to medicine or salves or even just flowers to help give peace to one another. Ellie knew each farm because she helped create each one, not the plants of course but the idea of each one and the building and separating and development. So thankfully, Ellie’s plan was easy.

Five hours a day, for two weeks straight, Ellie worked on her off-time from patrols, earning a wage that was enough to instead trade for some seeds and saplings of plants she thought Dina would enjoy. She worked at each farm, completing an array of tasks that would be as hard as building new side walls for the barns to washing all the horses in the corral. And slowly, Ellie began to receive payment. Starting, of course, with tomatoes; and ranging all the way to plants like oregano and snap peas.

Throughout the weeks, Ellie would present to Dina the newly found sapling, never telling her exactly how she came across it. And Dina was always too excited to really ask how anyways.

Dina’s face, when she produced her with the tiny seedling of the tomato plant, was one Ellie wanted to see and be the bringer of for the rest of her days on this earth. The way shock turned to disbelief to utter joy as the girl quietly gasped in excitement. The way Dina’s eyes widened then crinkled with the giant spread smile and shining irises.

The way Dina’s gaze burned a fire of passion in Ellie’s core, how the flames licked along her skin and spread like a wildfire from her chest to her toes.

Ellie wanted to experience that feeling, that emotion.

 _Every_.

 _Single_.

 _Day_.

Ellie never did tell Dina of how she came upon the seeds, but she was content with that, knowing how much joy she had brought to the shorter girls life. Even if only for a fraction of a second.

Ellie was content.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if it's not apparent, Ellie hates all weather
> 
> also I'm not from Wyoming so idk how the seasons work

_“_

_Dim down by the light in the hall,_  
_We were dancing in the dark,_  
_We danced to nothing at all._

  
_Stumbling, my cold feet,_  
_Oh my knees went weak when you looked to me,_  
_But for you, I'm a fool and more._

_“_

 

2.

 

Dina liked Ellie's clothing, a _lot_ , from what she could tell.

It didn't seem to matter what she wore, from flannels to tank tops to oversized sweaters. Anytime Ellie would walk into the room, Dina's eyes would roam.

Unapologetically.

Once when Ellie came over for breakfast, her torso clad in her favorite green and black, crisscrossed flannel — fabric worn soft to the feel and always smelling of smoke from a campfire — Dina had paused in her cooking and instantly bounced over to her. Welcoming Ellie as her hands freely felt down the sides of the taller girls arms. She tugged at the sleeves to pull Ellie into the kitchen and from then on, it was constant touches throughout their meal.

A hand to the shoulder as she reached for the salt shaker on the table. A brush along her back as she walked to the opposite end of the kitchen. A hug from behind when Ellie helped cook the eggs and then — what made Ellie’s heart stop altogether — an adjustment of her collar.

As the freckled girl turned, her hand holding the skillet of eggs ready to be disposed on their plates, Dina stepped close. _Very_ close. Ellie's breath caught when the shorter girl wasn't more than a few inches in front of her, close enough that Ellie could smell the peppermint toothpaste that lingered on the girl's breath. Delicate hands ran along her shoulders and gently tugged on the collar of her shirt, the collar she never bothered to mess with but one that always bugged Dina when it was upturned — maybe that's why Ellie never fixed them.

Dina's fingers slowly smoothed out the fabric, pulling Ellie’s head all the closer to hers. She awkwardly held the hot pan away from Dina as her other hand grasped the counter furiously. If the material wasn't marble she was sure it would have cracked beneath her grip.

With the motion, Dina’s hips locked into hers as the shorter girl leaned closer. Ellie had to squeeze her eyes shut from doing something stupid when Dina then rested her hands below her collarbones, her lips brushing against Ellie’s ear.

”Have I ever told you how great you look in this shirt.”

And then the air in front of her was empty, as Dina took the eggs from her hand and scooped them onto their plates.

Now there was a whole new reason why it was Ellie's favorite shirt.

  


This kind of thing happened in another instance, when Ellie was wearing a black, low-cut tank top tucked under the belt of her jeans while working on Dina's fence — because that was a thing she was doing now.

Along with the rain in the fall, the sun in the summer was just as unrelenting, and it made Ellie’s days of work excruciating. Especially now that she’d begun building a fence surrounding Dina’s backyard and garden. It had been Ellie's idea though when she realized she was no use to Dina while the girl gardened. Ellie's hands were clumsy and too aggressive as Dina put it, and she didn't work well with plants.

Ellie thought it was the _plants_ that didn't work well with her but she didn't voice that.

The fence had been the solution, a way to help keep Dina's privacy at bay as they hung out in the yard and a way for Ellie to seem useful while Dina worked at growing her plants. She was about halfway done with it too; all the posts had been set and the frame of it in place. All she had left to do was put up the actual fence part, the part that separated the yard from the rest of the town.

So, while Ellie hammered at the third plank of wood she’d stood against the wall of fencing, holding a couple nails between her teeth as sweat soaked into her top from the sun, she heard a scuffle behind her.

If there's one thing Ellies sure of, its that her physique was definitely one not to be ashamed of, at least that's what Dina said.

Well, Dina had used the word ”ripped”, but Ellie wasn't too keen on that one.

Ellie turned her head at the noise, her hand that wasn't holding the hammer taking the few nails between her teeth as she looked quizzically at the girl down on a knee just outside the sliding door. The shorter girl had apparently tripped when emerging from it.

”You doin’ good over there, Di?” Ellie looked at the girl as she got up quickly and dusted off her jeans, she wouldn't meet Ellie's eye.

”What, me? Oh, I'm fine. Great, actually!” She gasped for air and turned to look at the small drop from the bottom of the door to the small patch of pavement. ”D-did the step outside get higher?” Her voice dropped to a mutter but Ellie could still hear her, ”It seems higher… than from what I remember.”

Ellie had never seen Dina so flustered before, it rose a smirk to her lips. Her voice gaining a teasing quality to it. ”Higher than the last nine months we've been using it?”

Dina glared at her but finally bent down to pick up the bucket she’d been carrying, ”shut up, El.”

The taller girl giggled and turned back to the fence, making sure to square her shoulders in a stretch before sighing and setting off to work on the boards. Ellie heard Dina stumble again behind her.

She never let Dina live that one down.

 

~

 

Dina tried explaining the plants to Ellie, she really did. But Ellie’s mind didn't grasp them that well, and Dina could tell that the freckled girl just wasn’t all that interested in the fundamentals of gardening. How each plant grew differently and had special needs.

It’s not that Ellie didn’t understand it, it’s just that her mind would get bored with the explanation and she’d easily get distracted.

So, Dina tried a different approach.

While Ellie worked on the fence, and Dina knelt in her newly grown garden, the shorter girl would explain to Ellie the uses for each plant. And for some reason, this seemed to stick. The food was easy, the tomatoes and the carrots and the potatoes, those didn’t take much explanation for what they were used for. It was the other herbs that she’d acquired which seemed to fascinate Ellie.

How poppy seeds could be used as a pain reliever, or mint for indigestion. The little plants, which all looked the same to Ellie, were so extraordinary and special in their own little way that she couldn’t help but be interested in that.

So, while Ellie measured and sawed and hammered, Dina would gently describe each new plant she came upon while she clipped and watered and treated the small buds. From afar, it would seem as such a docile thing. Something so unimportant or perpetual that it held no true meaning.

But for Ellie — when she would spend her free time tirelessly setting up the wooden planks — listening to Dina talk endlessly about her plants was everything. Ellie loved the way the girl would get excited about each and every one.

She loved the way Dina’s face would light up with each new idea. She loved it when the girl would stop mid-sentence as she focused on her task, instantly getting back to her point afterward like nothing had happened. Ellie loved the way Dina tied her hair back so that it didn’t get in her face as she bent over. Ellie loved the way the afternoon sun would shine against the girl’s skin.

Ellie loved it when Dina would be so concentrated that the girl didn’t even notice when she had stopped responding. Until finally glancing up at Ellie and blushing at the realization.

Ellie loved it when Dina blushed.

When the red would overtake her features and tint her ears a pleasant pink.

Ellie loved…

Ellie loved a lot of things about Dina.

A lot.

 

~

 

As it seems, Dina to likes to _steal_ Ellie’s clothes just as much as she likes seeing Ellie in them.

This didn’t become apparent to Ellie until about the third or fourth time it happened, and that’s the time in which she lost her leather jacket — not that she minded.

It was late one evening, Ellie had only a row to go on the fence but the sun had already set so she was packing away the tools. The air was nice and crisp, as it usually was at night. Such a stark difference to how it can be during the day that Ellie preferred staying outside until the moon rose high into the sky. Letting the cool wind and it’s breeze tease her skin and pluck the loose pieces from her tied hair.

It was so quiet then — when everyone in the settlement had gone to bed besides those working the walls. But they never made any noise, so the only sounds one could hear then were those of the trees and their inhabitants. The rustle of leaves, creaking of branches, chirping of crickets, and scuffling of floor creatures. And the noises that were present but couldn’t be heard, like the flutter of a moth’s wing, or the shining of the stars.

The night was quiet in the way it wasn’t. In the way nothing can ever truly be quiet until it isn’t.

Ellie’s body was so calm at this time, she could close her eyes and just breath and _listen_ . And for these hours, she could just _be_.

Ellie was enjoying this time while she kicked her tool bag into its corner. Peacefully existing, so that she barely heard the sliding glass door open. Its tracks were well greased so it didn’t squeak, but she still picked up the soft scraping sound as Dina stepped out and closed it behind her.

Her hair was down and the slight breeze of the darkness picked up some of its strands and twirled them in the light of the moon.

Ellie loved it when Dina let her hair down.

She carried a blanket, from what Ellie could see. And when Dina finally caught her eyes, having scanned the yard quickly, her mouth tilted upwards in a soft smile. One that drew a replica from Ellie.

Dina silently beckoned her over with a tilt of her head, a soft jolt and a turn of her body that had Ellie following just as she did every day. Just as she always would. The girl walked to the middle of the yard, where the grass was short and spacious enough for her to lay the blanket down. And then herself on top of it.

When Ellie just watched her for a moment, curiously, Dina chuckled. “Get down here, tall stuff.”

She reached her hands into the air and made grabbing motions with them so Ellie rolled her eyes and finally joined.

Ellie lay so that their shoulders bumped against each other, a small glimpse of warmth in the cool air. Only when Ellie felt the leather material against her skin did she realize that Dina was wearing her jacket.

How hadn’t she noticed that?

Dina still smelled of jasmine, but now she also smelled of the earth and its soil. Ultimately though, she just smelled like Dina, and Ellie smiled at that, tilting her head closer to the girl as she asked. “What are we doing?”

“We’re stargazing.” Dina said it so matter of factly, like it should have been obvious, that Ellie didn’t say anything else. Only tearing her eyes away from the girl next to her and towards the brilliant sky above.

There’s something that not many people realize when an apocalypse hits. The world goes through such a devastation of destruction, that when it goes quiet, something beautiful unfolds from the wreckage. Something, not on the ground — amongst the blossoming foliage and decaying ruins — but up above.

So, far _far_ above, that one wouldn’t think, wouldn’t ponder, until noticing.

The night sky.

When the world shuts down, along with its civilizations and cities and communities, so does its power. So does its light.

Without the light from below combating with the light from above, there’s nothing stopping its full intensity. Nothing stopping the stars from shining brighter and fuller than any of us now have ever seen. Any of us now can even imagine.

Ellie tears her eyes from the brilliance beside her and looks towards the one above and smiles.

The stars are miraculous. The stars are boundless.

They are _countless_.

“Do you know any constellations?” Dina asks her after they’ve been out there a while, focusing on nothing but each other’s breathing and the twinkling lights above.

“No,” Ellie replied quietly, thinking that anything louder would break what they built in the small box around them.

“Me neither.” Her voice is light, and permanent.

Ellie giggles at that and Dina joins.

The girls stargaze almost every night after.

And Ellie never really got her jacket back.

 

~

 

“What, the fuck, is that smell.”

Ellie glanced up from where she was taking off her boots at the door, hands paused with the laces still between her fingers. The patrol she had just come back from had been out for four days, during which, she’d had a near death experience with a clicker that had ended with her falling into an old sewage stream. A very old, and very rotten, sewage stream.

She saw Dina sitting on the couch, her back leaning against one of the arms with a book in her lap and a disgusted expression on her face. “Hello to you too, Dina. Yes, my patrol was fine, and yes! I’ve missed your annoying ass too, thanks for saying.” Ellie mocked with an eye roll as she finally got her shoes off.

Dina shook her head, “nuh uh, you don’t get a nice greeting when you come in smelling like the fucking barn at Ben’s farm. You better get your ass straight to the shower.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Ellie made a pouting face as she took a nonchalant step towards the sitting girl, “cause I was hoping for a hug when I got home.”

Dina scoffed, picking up her book as she looked Ellie’s filthy clothes over, “yeah, good luck with that, Stretch.”

Ellie smiled at that, deviously.

Dina glanced up again from her book, “El, I swear to go-“

Ellie lunged.

Dina fell over the back of the couch in her scramble to dodge the girl’s attack, “what the fuck, Ellie!” The shorter girl screeched as she picked herself off the floor and ran to the kitchen. Ellie was fast on her trail and giggling.

Dina circled the dining table and froze, her hands gripping the backs of chairs as they stood on either side. “If you fucking touch me I’ll kill-“

Ellie dashed again, her long legs and the surprise of it let the taller girl catch the other in a few short seconds. She hugged her arms around Dina’s waist and lifted her into the air as the girl thrashed and tried to get away. But her resolve softened the more they fell into laughter and by the time Ellie set her down she’d turned, leaning into Ellie as their laughter subsided.

“You’re such an ass,” Dina chuckled, still leaning into Ellie, having given up.

The freckled girl gladly held her. “Looks like we both need a shower now.”

“Oh was that your plan, trying to get me in the shower?” Dina shoved her shoulder jokingly and Ellie choked.

“I- no, I,” Ellie stuttered.

Dina laughed, “don't hurt yourself, dork. I was only joking.” The shorter girl looked at her, the smile on her face calming to a simple upturn of the lips. Dina leaned close, “though I bet you wish I wasn’t.”

Her lips grazed Ellie’s ear, the words tickling against Ellie’s neck and she shuttered as Dina left with a wink down the hall towards the bathroom.

She could feel the red creeping through her face and to her ears.

Dina was never going to let her live _that_ one down.

 

~

 

Joel would occasionally help as Ellie built the fence when he was free from guard duty. It was one of the only times she got to see him ever because she never really went home. At least to _their_ home.

But Ellie didn’t think Joel minded — not having her home all the time. She could see the way he acted around Ms. Margaret, and she figured their relationship was a lot more involved than what Joel had ever let on.

Of course, her name wasn’t actually Ms. Margaret, it was Jean — Joel called her Jeanie, and Ellie thought that was the cutest thing.

After Ellie had stopped helping with Jean’s animals, once she got reassigned to patrols, Joel stepped in to take over. And it was all that man could do but shut up about the women. It was nice seeing him like this, it fit him, Ellie thought.

While the freckled girl would hammer the boards into the planks along the fence, Joel would do the same at the other end of the yard. Sometimes he would sing; he had a great voice and she was never surprised that he almost became a singer. Sometimes Ellie would join in with him, and once, she’d even brought the record player outside with an extension cord and they laughed as the music brought Dina out as well.

Dina was great with Joel, and Ellie loved that. The girl laughed at his stupid jokes and went along with his fatherly antics.

Every once in a while they would team together in teasing the tall girl and she did _not_ like that.

Well, at least, she _told_ them she didn’t like it.

Doesn’t mean she actually did.

Doesn’t mean they actually stopped.

  


Ellie had a feeling Joel was catching on to them more than she would have liked. Not that there was anything going _on_ between them, because of course there wasn’t, that was ludicrous. It’s _Dina_ for God’s sake, and she’s just...

She’s just Ellie.

At first, when Ellie would cook dinner with Joel and talk non stop about her day with Dina, she hadn’t thought much of it. That’s just what her days consisted of, spending time with Dina. Eating meals with Dina and walking with Dina and talking with Dina. Watching movies and reading and hanging out with the shorter girl. It’s just what she did.

But then Joel started making offhand comments about them. About their interactions, about their relationship.

And then he started teasing her about it — when he found out Ellie liked the other girl. Not that Ellie had ever told him, but Joel was really good at guessing. And Ellie never did deny it.

Until finally, one evening while they made dinner, he sat her down and they talked about what her relationship with Dina really was. And she explained. She explained how Dina was the most gorgeous and interesting person she’d ever met. How she looked forward to every moment she got to spend with the other girl, and how Dina made Ellie laugh like no one else could, and how Dina’s smile would light up the night’s sky. About how every time Dina touched her it was like shivers under her skin.

About how Ellie _really_ liked her.

A _lot._

But that this was Dina, so of course that wasn’t gonna happen. Because Dina was beautiful, and deserved much greater than Ellie could give her.

And besides, the shorter girl would never see Ellie in that way. Not in the way Ellie tried desperately not to see her, because she knew that _that_ was not going to have a happy ending.

And then Joel scoffed.

He scoffed, and shook his head, and called her kiddo — which he only did now if Ellie was acting like a dumbass — and got up from the table to finish cooking.

Ellie didn’t respond to that, she didn’t know how to, not when his reaction was the complete opposite of everything she had just confided in him. She just stood up as Joel had and grabbed plates from the cupboard to set the table.

It was then, of course, that Dina walked in. Her body still wrapped in thicker clothing for the decreasing temperature, and her boots stomping to clear away the mud. She smiled when she caught Ellie’s eyes, and Ellie did the same before returning to set the plates on the wooden surface.

And Dina, once her boots were untied and her jacket stripped, came up behind her. A cold palm wrapped itself around Ellie’s shoulder as the girl behind it pushed herself up to brush a set of chapped lips against Ellie’s cheek. “Hey there, tall stuff.”

Ellie could feel the girl’s smile as she turned to greet Joel as well.

“I’m gonna go wash up.” With a final squeeze, Dina pushed off her shoulder and set herself towards the bathroom down the hall. Ellie still stood with a stack of plates gathered on her arm and a hovering one frozen in her hand.

Joel just gave her a pointed look, as if to say, “told you so, kiddo.”

And Ellie could feel the heat rising from her chest so she just ducked her head and quickly set the rest of the plates.

Joel never let her live that down.

 

~

 

The days were getting colder again. Not _cold_ as in a slight chill every once in a while accompanied by the breeze.

It was getting _cold._ And Ellie was certain it was going to start snowing any day now.

It terrified her, the thought stirring in her stomach and reminding her of a time that sent chills through her veins. And not chills of cold either, but of fear.

The season hasn’t been great for their town, they had had two bandit attacks in the same amount of months and it seemed that every able bodied citizen was getting sick one way or another. Dina was busy day and night over at the Bay, and Ellie hardly got to see her when she was back from patrols.

Ellie could see the work wearing on the shorter girl, she could see the tiredness that hung under the girl’s eyes every night and the stress that was eating away at her.

Ellie tried to help as much as she could, by cooking more often than not and trying to make Dina’s home life as stress-free as possible. And it worked, for the most part. Watching Dina walk through the door and seeing relief relax the girl’s shoulders and fill her lungs with calm.

It worked, until the night it didn’t.

The door opened late into the evening; when the sun had just set so the town was dark but not completely black yet. Ellie could hear Dina shuffle in and she bounced out of the kitchen, holding a potato from Dina’s garden in her hand and a peeler in the other.

“Hey, so, I know we were gonna try for the pasta thing but we just have _so_ many potatoes-“ Ellie stopped, her bare feet skidding to a halt on the wooden floors.

Right before the door stood a tired looking Dina, which was normal, but tonight — tonight was different. Her eyes were bloodshot, and red from obvious crying, her breaths were shallow, and her whole frame was shaking in the way Ellie could tell she was trying not to.

“Dina?” Ellie’s hands dropped the items off at the shelf near the door as she stepped closer. “Hey, Di.”

It’s like the girl didn’t even hear her, her normal murky eyes seemed darker, hollower.

“Dina,” Ellie stepped in front of her, taking one of her hands as she gently touched the girl’s face, it was so cold. Her whole body was just _so_ cold.

The girl shook more under her touch as her eyes finally focused on Ellie’s.

“Hey,” the taller girl smiled encouragingly, her thumb brushed along the soft skin under Dina’s eye as she wiped away dried tear tracks. “What happened?”

Ellie spoke so softly, as quietly as she’d ever done before. Dina seemed more fragile than the taller girl had ever seen.

Dina’s body shook harder as she opened her mouth, trying to explain but not being able to before silent tears began streaming again. And her lips trembled as soundless words tried taking their shape.

Ellie didn’t hesitate before pulling her closer, even with boots, she was still taller as she wrapped her arms around Dina. Threading her fingers through the girl’s hair as she held her head in the crook of her neck, and hugged her close with the other.

Dina’s bodies racked with quiet sobs. Only making any sound when she shakily breathed in. Ellie kept her hold firm around the girl, whispering nothing but comfort against the girl’s hair as she pulled her closer. Dina shook involuntarily, but her arms slowly slid from between them and around Ellie’s back. One hand bunching in her grey t-shirt as the other found its way between her shoulder blades.

Ellie wasn’t sure how long they stood there, her trying not to break at the girl broken in her arms.

It wasn’t until Ellie smelled something burning that she finally pulled away. Keeping the girl close still, as she brushed Dina’s loose hair from her face, the pieces having stuck to the dampness on the girl’s cheeks.

“Come on,” Ellie pulled Dina, who no longer cried but simply looked empty, to the kitchen where she turned off the stove. The freckled girl not once letting go of the other.

Ellie helped Dina out of her jacket and sat her down to help remove the girl’s shoes as well. Dina didn’t seem to notice anything Ellie did.

When Dina was down to her normal shirt and jeans, with one of their small blankets wrapped around her shoulders as she sat at the table, did Ellie finish cooking dinner. But neither of them were too hungry when she set it down in front of them so they just picked at it in silence.

Ellie kept glancing up at Dina, hoping she would explain, hoping she would start something or just _say_ something. Ellie sucked at this kind of stuff. She felt useless not knowing how to help the other girl.

After it being apparent none of them were gonna eat, Ellie gathered and cleaned everything before standing next to Dina’s chair. Hands clenching and unclenching at her sides as she looked at the helpless girl below her.

“Dina.” It was the first word spoken between the two since they’d separated by the door.

The girl pulled the blanket tighter around her as she looked up at Ellie. Her gaze was pleading.

So Ellie crouched and ran her hand down Dina’s arm that was hidden in the tent of the blanket before closing a hand around the shorter girl’s. She squeezed it gently and Dina just looked at her — following her, as Ellie pulled the girl to her feet and lead her to the bedroom.

Dina still didn’t talk as she changed into the pajamas Ellie had given her, her voice silent until she’d slipped under the covers and watched as the taller girl hesitated in the doorway. Not sure if she should leave back home.

Ellie had never stayed before, never slept over. There hadn’t really been a need to when she lived right down the street.

Finally, after keeping her lips sealed tight the entire night, Dina looked at her and whispered.

”Stay. Please.”

And Ellie did.

Ellie flicked the lights off and crossed the room hesitantly before getting in next to the girl. Who, without _any_ hesitance, clung to Ellie soundlessly.

Small arms wrapped around her back as Dina curled into her front, the girl’s head resting against her chest, right beneath her chin. Ellie awkwardly held out her arms in surprise before returning the favor. Securely enfolding Dina within herself as their legs tangled together without any prompt.

Ellie would have been elated if the situation had been any different from the one they’d found themselves in.

She still didn’t ask as Dina clung tighter to her, only dipping her chin and placing a soft kiss to the shorter girl’s hairline. There would be time for answers later.

Right now, Ellie was there in whatever way Dina needed her, whatever way she asked for. And currently, all Dina had asked was for Ellie to hold her. Even if it was a silent plea.

So Ellie did.

Later, she would find out that little Oliver had gotten sick. Just a cold it had seemed, but that soon turned to flu, and then pneumonia. The med bay, as efficient as its system was, _wasn’t_ prepared for this.

And Dina had tried, she had tried and tried and _tried_. To keep Oliver breathing, to keep him alive to see next winter. The whole clinic tried. They just weren’t equipped enough.

They just weren’t efficient _enough_.

Dina didn’t go back there for a long time after. Ellie didn’t know if she ever could again.

 

  
It was a week after, that Ellie offered Dina to go on patrol with her, only a day trip, nothing extreme. She even said it could just be the two of them if the other girl wasn’t comfortable with others.

“I basically run the patrols,” she’d said.

“It’ll be a new experience,” she’d said.

Dina had just looked at her sideways before agreeing. It didn’t take much for her to agree with Ellie.

  


Ellie stayed true to her word and took Dina alone on her first patrol. Scheduling them for a day trip to the neighboring town and back, just a training trip that would allow Ellie to show the girl the ropes.

“Why’s it only us?” Dina had asked as they walked down Colonial Street in route to Banks. It was a residential area, and they were surrounded by shops that barely looked as such and roads long time faded. Pavement cracked in spirals and worn down to mostly gravel.

“We don’t need anyone else.” Ellie’d responded, kicking a loose rock along their path.

“What, don’t trust our friendly neighbors?” She joked — something that had been slowly coming back to her in recent since the accident, and Ellie smiled into her chest.

“No, I trust them. Just not with this trip.”

“And what’s so special about this trip?” Dina had bumped into her shoulder, and Ellie’d hid her rising blush in her jacket’s collar.

 _You_ , she’d wanted to say, I don’t trust them to protect _you._

But she hadn’t. Instead, Ellie had shrugged and kicked the rock into a crumbling doorway of an old Krispy Kreme. “Nothin’ really, just didn’t want them laughing at me when I have us stop at the comic shop in town.”

Dina’d laughed, wholeheartedly, and with so much joy compared to the last week that Ellie’s lips had upturned to the cheesiest smile.

“You’re such a dork.”

 

~

 

Ever since the first time they spent the night in the backyard, huddled together on the faded quilt and blanketed with a sky of sparkling constellations, they had done it almost every night since. When they were both home of course.

Sometimes they didn't speak a single word while they did this, but sometimes they would. Sometimes they would speak a little, sometimes they wouldn’t shut up, and sometimes they would only speak at first or right before they went to bed. The subject of the matter fluctuated to what had happened that day. Something to do with the townspeople, or to do with something one of them read, or something that happened while on patrol.

It didn’t seem to matter _what_ they talked about. Just that they always could, with each other, with no hesitation or awkwardness.

Conversation just _flowed_. Like a river. Sometimes steady, sometimes rising, sometimes shallow. But always constant.

There was a night, in the fall before Ellie would turn nineteen, when Dina had offered something different. When instead of stargazing, she’d leaned up on her elbows, hovering over a curious Ellie, and smiling brightly. Eyes fresh with a new idea, a new concept dancing between her murky irises.

“Do you wanna dance?”

Ellie smiled uncertainly, waiting for Dina to laugh. And when she didn’t Ellie looked at her with disbelief. “You’re kidding, right? We don’t even have music.”

Ellie, her cheeks bedazzled in sun-fading freckles, watched as Dina hopped to her feet and shook her head.

“Serious as a heart attack,” she crossed her hand over her chest for good measure, “and you don’t need music to dance, dork.”

She sat up, staring at the crazy girl before her as she leaned her elbows against her knees. “Uh, yeah you do. That’s like, the whole fucking point.” Ellie laughed as Dina bounced on her heels, seeming eager for — _something_ — she wasn’t quite sure.

Dina sighed and grabbed Ellie’s hands before pulling the bewildered girl to her feet. “You think too much, Stretch. Just feel the rhythm of the earth.”

“Okay, hippie.” Ellie awkwardly stood there as Dina moved around her, seeming to find a beat in something that didn’t exist.

When Dina rounded her again, she stopped in front of Ellie, giving her a pointed look. “It’s not fun when you do it by yourself.”

Ellie just shrugged, “I don’t know how.”

“To dance?”

She shrugged again. Dina pondered that, looking at Ellie — her eyes studying the features of the taller girl.

“Then I’ll teach you.” Now it was Dina’s turn to shrug as she gently picked up Ellie’s hands.

“What?” Ellie’s plan to get out of this was quickly tumbling away.

“ _I’ll_ . _Teach_ . _You_ . I didn’t stutter did I?” She took both of Ellie’s wrists and wrapped them around her waist, “it’s pretty — _hold those there_ — simple, actually.” Dina released them and rested her own arms on Ellie’s shoulders.

The weight of them was something Ellie’d only felt when carrying her to bed, and it was different now. Now that they were both conscious instead of half asleep, now that they were both aware.

“Here, I’ll teach you the easiest. It’s called _slow dancing_.” Dina tightened her hands around Ellie’s neck and smiled coyly at her.

Ellie huffed and felt her eyes start to roll, but she didn’t argue. Instead, after a moment of Dina looking smugly at her, Ellie decided to just relax.

It was only Dina after all.

She let go of the grasp her hands had around Dina’s waist and instead rested them each on Dina’s hips. Her palms slid against the soft fabric of the sweater that fell to the shorter girl’s thighs and gripped the solid silhouette of the girl beneath it.

The action — _fluttered,_ in the pits of Ellie’s stomach.

And she thought she heard Dina’s breath stutter.

After a moment, when Dina didn’t reposition her, and their feet began to take lazy steps that sent them spinning in a slowly moving circle, did Ellie quietly speak up. “Like this?”

Dina breathed, “yeah, like this,” and she tightened the arms around Ellie’s neck further until her chin rested against the taller girl’s shoulder.

Their cheeks pressed together so delicately that Ellie had a hard time perceiving if they actually were. But Dina moved closer, tucking Ellie’s head in the crook of the girl’s neck, and then she had a hard time doing anything _but_ that.

Dina was so _warm_ and intoxicating. Ellie wanted to curl around her indefinitely and sleep in the softness of the girl’s being.

Their feet continued stepping, and their lungs continued breathing.

Ellie felt Dina’s fingertips playing with the shorter hairs behind her head and a shiver ran down her spine, causing a gentle smile to present itself against Ellie’s neck.

“Cold, Stretch?”

“Says the one in the sweater.”

Their bodies continued molding to each other as their steps grew slower but continuous.

“Just wait, I’ll make a dancer out of you yet. And then you can impress all the ladies at the town hall.” The words were quiet, and distant because they came from behind her and yet right beside her.

“You do realize you’re literally the only girl my age in this town, right?” Ellie chuckled but Dina just pulled closer and hummed.

“Peculiar, isn’t that?”

Ellie didn’t know what to say to that. Hell, she didn’t even know what to think to that. So after a small stumble, she wrapped her arms tighter around Dina’s waist and kept their movements going. Simply enjoying the close proximity between them, and memorizing what it felt to have Dina’s body against hers.

She could think about it later.

For the stars would continue their brightly shining spotlight, the moon wouldn't stray from her hover, and the world would keep on spinning. Just like the feet of the two girls on the ground.

 

~

 

 

“Jesse asked me out today, while I was walking through Gloria’s line to get our lunch.”

It’s funny, isn’t it, how one sentence can change your entire reality? A single sentence could bring new light or meaning to a concept, could completely correct and overwrite anything and everything you’d ever believed. Sentences hold life in itself together, strings our universe with a few fragmented words and ideologies.

Sentences are powerful things.

And this one, this sentence, this fragmented _phrase_ , that spelled itself from Dina’s lips while they prepped for dinner one evening — it was like a giant crater in Ellie's slowly reconstructed reality.

“Why didn't you tell me earlier at lunch?”

It’s crazy what the body can let you do when your mind is having a complete and utter meltdown. How your body can simply turn on like autopilot and control your actions while your consciousness is elsewhere.

Ellie stood facing the window that overlooked Dina’s backyard, her hands chopping their way through a carrot to add to the stew on the stove. It was an easy task — simple. One that faltered for a mere second when the girl, sitting behind her at the table spoke up.

“I had to think about it.”

Oh.

That was reasonable of course, one should fully consider all options and circumstances before diving into a relationship with someone. It was _reasonable_. But Ellie… Ellie’s heart was racing and beating and _shattering_.

She was too late, she thought. But no, she wasn’t too late, because this wasn’t something that was time constricted. Dina didn’t _see_ her like that, didn't _want_ her like that. It’s not something Ellie or Dina or — hell — anyone else, could ever change.

But _fuck_ , if it still didn’t hurt Ellie worse than she thought possible.

“And have you come to a conclusion?” It was like Ellie was portraying a character, one that was supportive and understanding and giddy at the prospect of _boys_.

“I don't know, that's why I wanted to tell you.”

Tell her?

Ellie still didn’t turn around, _couldn’t_ turn around. Not yet. She couldn’t look at Dina right now, not while this conversation unfolded. She just had to breathe, and relax, and _breathe_.

“Well he's a nice guy, I’d say go for it, if that’s something you want.” No, _no._ Don’t go for it, don’t _want_ it.

_Please._

“He's cute, too.” Who even was she, it’s like Ellie didn’t even exist anymore, and these phrases coming out of her mouth were not her own.

“Yeah,” Dina muttered.

Finally, Ellie turned around as she’d finished the carrot, having compiled the chunks into her hands.

But Dina wasn’t _giddy_ like she had thought.

The girl wasn’t even remotely happy.

She looked... disappointed, as her eyes trained towards something on the table that didn’t exist. Dina looked like she did when completing a puzzle. Ellie could see the gears turning and cranking in the girl’s brain.

It didn’t look like she was contemplating, it was as if she was _accepting_ something. Like she’d been fed a new fact and was internalizing it rather than studying it.

Why didn’t she look _happy?_

When Dina finally glanced up at Ellie, the taller girl smiled encouragingly, though she felt the opposite. Because that’s what she was supposed to do.

_Right?_

But Dina’s face seemed to break further — like the acceptance had finally set and the girl sighed. Looking away from Ellie as she got up from the table to stir the pot on the stove.

“Yeah.”

  


Dina called off their dinner two days later, she didn’t say why.

But Ellie _knew_.

Ellie _knew_ because Jesse had never seemed happier when he’d strolled into the scheduling meeting that day. He’d looked like a child that had stepped into a candy store for the first time.

Ellie knew before Dina even said a word.

Ellie knew the moment she’d left the girl’s house the other night, with a poorly spoken goodbye.

  


Four weeks.

That’s how long Dina had been canceling their dinners and not showing up to their lunches and sometimes avoiding Ellie when the taller girl had seen her.

 _Four. Fucking. Weeks_.

Of Ellie crawling into bed at night feeling empty. Of Ellie’s stomach _churning_ to the thought of where Dina could have been instead, what she could have been doing. _Who_ she could have been doing.

It made her want to throw up. Picturing someone’s hands on her, picturing…

It made her _sick_ . And she hated it because she had no _right_ to feel that way. Dina _wasn’t_ hers. So why the fuck was Ellie’s body feeling as though she’d lost an entire part of herself.

It had been four weeks of Ellie clinging to the blankets on her cold bed, of awkward dinners with Joel who didn’t ask but who _knew_ . And with Jean, who was just _so_ nice and _so_ sweet.

But it felt wrong. It felt _wrong_. Because this wasn’t her true home.

And as it seemed, neither had been Dina’s.

 

There was a night, a month into her solitude that Ellie woke to a start.

She’d woken to the noise of someone else in her room and when she sat up to react, a calming hand found her shoulder and pushed her back down.

“Chill, Stretch, it’s just me.”

“Dina?” Her voice was gravely and thick with sleep. The moon was high in the sky and Ellie could only guess it was past midnight.

“Scooch,” Dina was lifting and getting under the covers with Ellie, shoving her to the other side of the bed so that she could curl into the taller girl’s arms.

Ellie was tired and confused but she welcomed the girl without hesitance. Wrapping her arms securely around her smaller frame as the girl nuzzled her face into the crook of Ellie’s neck. Even amongst her confusion, that action still sent a shiver down Ellie’s body.

It had been so long since she’d been able to just _hold_ Dina that Ellie pulled the girl closer, ducking her head to breathe in the solace of jasmine and earth. Dina squeezed her as well and Ellie felt like crying.

Only for a second. But she did.

Sleepiness did weird things to people.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were out with Jesse.” Ellie murmured into the girl’s hair as she trailed her fingers down the girl’s spine, feeling as the girl melted under her touch.

Dina just hummed a confirmation in response and Ellie furrowed her brow in further confusion. And then her heart stopped, and anger flooded through her like a virus, spiraling under her skin and through her veins. Hot and _red_.

“What did he do? He didn’t-“ Her breath was _fiery_.

“No!” Dina squeezed her and ran a soothing hand down Ellie’s arm until curling their hands together. “Calm down, it wasn’t like that…” Dina paused, “well _yes_ , it was a little like that but not in the bad way you’re thinking.”

Dina breathed, and Ellie could feel the girl’s heart stuttering above her. But she stayed quiet, letting the other girl speak. “Jesse… he’s not who… that’s just not where I wanted to be.”

Ellie’s breath was ragged as she heard the girl’s words, as she heard what was _between_ the girl’s words. The unsaid being what truly rang loudest. “And where _did_ you want to be?”

Dina shifted closer, and Ellie could feel her lips whisper the words against her neck. Quietly, and so honestly that it sucked the breath from Ellie’s lungs. From her soul.

“Here, Ellie, I wanted to be here.”

“Oh… right,” Ellie mumbled, her brain short-circuiting at what had just transpired in the last couple of minutes.

Dina giggled, relaxing fully into Ellie’s body as their legs tangled and their fingers entwined, “right.”

 

~

 

  
There were times when Ellie and Dina would go to Joel’s place for the night, it was a weekly thing they’d done. Joel had built a fire pit out back and had surrounded it with logs and a few camping chairs he’d managed to scrounge up.

That small pit, dug into the ground and lined with rocks three feet high, became the town's centerpiece. A place for anyone and everyone to relax on nights they’d have it burning.

Ellie loved those nights.

She loved the preparation, watching Dina pack a small bag of snacks and have a pile of blankets thrown at her to carry. She loved the hum of excitement that flowed between them as they walked there, the buzz of anticipation for a night of utter serenity.

The campfire itself was always flaring high by the time they got there, and even arriving early still met them with locals. It was a known event to be hosted every Thursday evening and was anticipated by most.

The walk there was always quiet, just the sounds of the world around them and their footsteps crunching along the gravel. Ellie’s arms would be full of either blankets or a bag of whatever they had brought with them, but Dina would still bump into her playfully as they strolled under the starlight. They could see the fire burning from the dirt road three houses down.

Even if the flames weren’t visible, they cast an orange glow so wide they could see the shadows dancing between Joel’s fence posts. From there, it was just a quick trip through the side gate and into the yard of people, laughing, and alcohol.

Ellie never drank much, she'd never found the mixture sat with her well. But occasionally, when a bottle passed around the fire, she would participate. Feeling the acidic concoction warm her stomach from the inside out. And the smiles that came easier to her then.

Dina was always more loose than her, and at these times Ellie would almost always see a drink of something in the girl’s hands. Trips home with the girl — wasted and silly in her arms — wasn’t uncommon on these nights.

But seeing Dina so relaxed and carefree, smiling and laughing at every soul she met. The blazing eyes she would link with across the fire. Was worth it. Dina was always worth it.

The town didn’t really care for the old laws about drinking. They figured if you were old enough to hold a gun and help manage an entire settlement with its inhabitants, then who gave a shit if you drank a little.

Hell, everyone during the apocalypse could use a drink every once in a while. A break from the ravage reality they all survived in.

On this night, when they entered through the gate — Ellie holding it open for the shorter girl, who thanked her with a short kiss to the cheek — Joel was already out and tending the fire. Jean sitting across from him and wrapped in a blanket as she watched the man give life to hot coals.

Ellie could see a few other stragglers as her and Dina made claim to one of the logs. They sat facing Jean, and soon Joel, as he went to sit by the other woman. Blankets were unfolded as they made their seats comfortable, and when all was done, Dina leaned heavily into Ellie’s side until the taller girl finally wrapped an arm around her.

Ellie really did love these nights.

It took only half an hour more before most of the local neighborhood showed up. Jesse coming with his mom, Tommy with Maria and their three-year-old son, Joey, and many others who Ellie lost count of as she turned her head towards Dina.

The girl was watching the fire silently, and Ellie slowly leaned their heads together as they watched. The flames danced and twirled in motions only known to the fire, and Ellie was warm. From more than just the heat. From more than just the girl beside her.

It was on these nights that the community would join together in peace and serenity, in an existence of one from many. They would all talk, and laugh, and joke, and share stories. On more than one occasion Joel would bring out his guitar and other members would bring similar instruments and just play to what their hearts desired.

A band of misfit composers.

It wouldn’t always sound great, and that was okay. It didn’t have to sound amazing to allow the people to feel connected and blissful. Just the small chords and notes of the neighbors were enough. Enough to breathe the night’s air, to envelop in the wood smoke and crackling fire, to absorb the folks surrounding the quaint yard.

This was another one of those nights, but only Joel had his guitar out today. Nobody else had made the effort to lug over another instrument of theirs.

So the small group of people from the town of the dam sat and listened as Joel strummed and sang softly. His voice deep and soothing in the way an ocean is bottomless.

Jean sat next to him, her shoulders wrapped in the quilt that Ellie recognized from Joel’s bedroom. She was staring at the older man with adoring eyes. With _loving_ eyes. And Joel stared right back, his face so peaceful and content as he sung to the woman. Ellie’s heart fluttered at that, at the happiness her old man — her _father_ — had found. Ellie watched the two, the way their eyes seemed to speak without words. The way they were engrossed in their own little bubble.

It was so promising, and supportive, and just, so full of _love_.

Ellie had to hide her smile in the head of the girl cuddled against her.

After a while, when everyone had stopped talking as the night had grown long — all that existed were the single soft notes of an old wooden guitar — Dina nudged Ellie under their shared blanket. A blanket encompassing them like a tent.

Ellie leaned back to look at her, her form so close and still entangled with the freckled girl’s own that it was a hard feat. Dina’s eyes were soft, brown underlying a grey that drew in Ellie like moth to flame. They were even softer tonight after an evening of rest, they were sleepy but in the way that meant she wasn’t tired.

“You should play something,” she whispered, their heads still close enough that it was a sound encased by the two.

Ellie scoffed, “yeah right.” She smiled in kind at the girl, her eyes glancing all around a face immaculate of imperfection in Ellie’s ideal. “I barely know how.”

“Oh please,” Dina shoved Ellie with her shoulder, “don't think I haven't seen that guitar in your room. And I've heard you sing along to that one album so much I’d swear you wrote it.”

The shorter girl was smiling at Ellie so encouragingly but her heart reeled. She couldn’t do this, not what Dina was asking. There were too many people, too many eyes, too many ears. It had been so long since she’d played.

“Dina, I haven't-“ But she was interrupted.

“Ellie, please?” Her eyes were so earnest and she could feel her exterior falter.

“For me?”

For her?

Ellie sighed, her eyes looking away from the pleading girl beside her and towards Joel who was still playing gently. No real song, just a few notes here and there that kept the atmosphere awake.

He caught her gaze and lifted his eyes brows, a smirk crossing his features when his eyes glanced to the girl beside her. Ellie had to wonder if this had been a ruse all along.

But she got up anyways and quickly walked around the fire to grab the wooden instrument before sitting back at her spot. Dina had claimed territory to the entire blanket as she watched the taller girl’s journey.

Ellie could feel everyone’s eyes on her, and it made her hands shake as she gently played a few notes to get the feel back. The wires were rough and cut into her into unpracticed fingers, but she breathed in before looking to Dina again.

And then she played. Slowly at first, a song she had practiced so many times it was ingrained in her fingertips and in the words that gently came from her lips. But as she continued she relaxed, and she tried another, more heartfelt song than before. And she looked at Dina again. She absorbed herself in the murky eyes of a girl, a girl who was staring back with an intensity Ellie couldn’t comprehend.

Dina was watching her, she was looking at her with this mix of expressions — Dina was _looking_ at her like…

Like…

Dina was looking at Ellie the way Jean looked at Joel.

And Ellie fumbled, almost messing up the lyrics as her fingertips strummed the wrong chord — but nobody noticed — because Dina was looking at her with admiration and awe, her eyes were shining in the reflection of the fire and they showed such... such...

And Ellie couldn’t _grasp_ what it was she saw dancing in the murky brown eyes — because she was _Ellie_.

Because _she_ , was _Ellie_ . And nobody — nobody had ever _looked_ at her like that.

She saw Joel across the campfire tuck Jean under his arm as they listened. And when she caught his eye, his face luminous from the blazing fire that sat between them — the flames casting shadows across the divots of his wrinkles and along the edges of his beard — he winked. He winked at her, with a proud expression across his features.

And Ellie just didn’t _get_ it.

Because she was Ellie.

 

~

 

All it took was a moment of laughter.

A moment of childlike giddiness as they walked along the train tracks by the old and fallen water tower. Careful steps taken, placing their feet one in front of the other.

A balancing act.

It took Dina hopping from rail to rail, her dancerly form traveling her body with ease. As footfall after footfall would land on either side of Ellie.

They were laughing and giggling as they walked along the tracks, lost in a world of bliss so rare that their cheeks burned with radiance.

It was when Dina hopped in front of Ellie again, who was keeping her balance along one side of the tracks by holding her arms out in a t-pose. It was when the girl turned around, and with utter grace, balanced along the rail backwards as she looked at Ellie. Ellie who could barely keep upright while walking _forwards._ And Dina was laughing, not _at_ her but with her. As they traveled unceremoniously along the road past-used by railcars.

It was then.

When the shot rang out.

A punch in the air that crashed through the trees and whistled around the brush and _burned_ in Ellie’s ears.

Dina's laughter stopped with a choked gasp.

A choked gasp and a growing spot of red spreading across her chest.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter kind of got away from me, oops

_“_

_When life wears its best,_  
_I see us in happiness,_  
_If you're gonna love someone,_  
_Let it be me._

_If you're gonna love someone,_   
_Let it be me._

_“_

 

3.

  


“Ellie.”

“ _Ellie_.”

She sucked in a breath, her eyes focusing on the room she sat in and the girl who sat just before her in bed. The room was a pale blue, with paint peeling walls and smelling of cleaning fluid and dried blood.

Dina sat before her, tucked beneath a thin sheet and under a blanket that had seen its years. Her face was soft, eyes going back and forth between her own as she studied Ellie. Her face was clean, and hazy, but as perfect as ever.

“There you are, thought I lost you for a second.”

Ellie looked at her, her arms folded and leaning against her knees in the chair she sat in beside the bed. Dina’s arm was slung tightly to her chest in a sling, and she was dressed in on of those medical gowns that always looked so stupid in Ellie’s opinion. But right now, it just filled the girl with relief.

“You could never lose me.” She whispered, eyes sincere as she looked at Dina and the girl smirked.

“Don’t I know it.”

  
  


“Ellie,” Dina’s head was cradled into her neck and she kept feeling the whispered name against her skin, over and over as they moved towards the settlement. Dina couldn’t hold on, not with the gunshot wound, so Ellie tried her best to keep a hold of the girl in her arms. Holding her firm enough to not drop her but also being careful of her injury.

Her feet were fast on the ground, pounding with each step, tearing their way through the dirt and lifting up gravel as they sped along. The path back was easy, she’d taken it so many times. But they had been _so_ far away. And it would take hours to run.

But to hell if she wasn’t going to do it.

“Ellie.”

She wasn’t even sure if Dina knew she was saying her name. The girl’s eyes were closed and from what Ellie could tell, she kept falling in and out of consciousness.

It made Ellie run faster.

She couldn’t feel her legs anymore.

The gates were sealed shut when she finally got back, it’s was nighttime by then, and the moon hung low in the sky. Behind trees and hidden in the foliage.

It was dark, but Ellie screamed for whatever guard was on duty, she screamed until the gates opened and she was ushered inside by Teresa who told her to shut up before she invited every Infected from the county.

Others had flocked towards the gate by the time she made it inside the compound, all looking curiously at her as she held Dina closer. The girl hadn’t spoken a word in the last hour, but Ellie could still feel shallow breaths against her neck so she had hope.

She _had_ to have hope.

She couldn’t not.

Jesse emerged from the crowd as she heard the large grinding of metal behind her — the door being locked into place.

He came running to her, touching a hand under Dina’s back as he questioned Ellie and tried taking the girl from her. Her heart raced, and her arms tightened, holding the Dina closer as she stepped away from him.

But his eyes looked so kind and so _worried_ . Just like her. And Ellie realized that Dina had _people_ , she had other people who cared for the girl and it filled her with a relief she didn’t know she needed.

Jesse stepped forward again, pleading her with his gaze. And she almost gave her to him.

She almost did.

But then an arm snaked around her neck, and Dina was clinging to Ellie as tightly as she was to her. When Jesse tried approaching again she gripped Ellie’s shoulders and flinched away from the boy’s touch.

“ _No.”_

It was a whisper, barely there, and _broken_ , but Ellie could hear it against her skin. “ _No_ . I don’t want him, I want _you_ . I only want _you, Ellie_.”

Her heart was still racing as the words settled into her core and she looked through the boy in front of her. A man really, but in her eyes, she could only ever see the kid who threw snowballs at her in winter.

She looked for a way through the crowd of onlookers. Who stood shoulder to shoulder and had obviously just woken up. Their night clothes hanging loose and their eyes just as tired.

When she spotted a gap, between an older man hanging on to his granddaughter’s shoulders, and Cory, who had grown so, in the past few years. She took it.

Dina’s arms fell away from her shoulders again as the girl slumped into her arms once more. Ellie held Dina close like she had done countless times before. But this time she wasn’t sleep ridden, limbs heavy with a soft slumber and sated being. Now her body was limp and almost lifeless, now Ellie could hardly hear her breathing because she _wasn’t,_ now Ellie could barely feel a pulse because her own was racing too rapidly.

Her murky eyes became shadowy, brown turning chalky and grey slowly filtering over. Ellie didn’t have time to think about that, she _couldn’t._

She just had to get her help.

  
  


“ _Ellie._ ”

She watched, in the moment, as time slowed to an inexplicable rate. It didn’t stop, because that’s not how the laws of physics functioned, but as Ellie watched Dina’s eyes widen, everything just stopped moving as fast as it should have.

Murky eyes — one of the most beautiful things about the girl — shifted, and for the first time, Ellie saw raw fear reflecting back to her as the girl stumbled from the rails. Her hands were fast to hold onto Dina as the girl’s feet dropped her body, failing to keep her upright. She pulled Dina close to her as knees met gravel.

Time was slowing in the way Ellie could interpret each second of it, in the way she could think and feel her emotions changing with each passing moment. She recognized Dina’s shock, and her falling, and the way it felt to catch her, and the way Ellie had ultimately stopped breathing. _Stopped_ thinking.

Dina was gasping into her chest, each intake of breath releasing a small whine that was making Ellie’s heart rate faster and faster. Delicate hands were grabbing at her arms, almost _clawing_ at her, but it was pain spurring the actions. And shock.

There was so much blood now, it was seeping all throughout the top of Dina’s shirt and Ellie didn’t have time to find the source before another bullet whizzed by her head. So silently and so quickly, but it stirred her hair and its small noise burned the left side of her ear.

They had to _go._

But Dina couldn’t even breath correctly, her eyes were no longer focusing on Ellie’s and she couldn’t get both of them out of here safely. They were in the open.

She didn’t know what she’d been thinking. The moment the tracks opened up into a valley between two patches of trees Ellie should have instantly taken them to cover. It was her procedure, it was how their patrols worked, how they ran.

But Dina had been laughing so gently, had such a brilliant smile that reflected the sun and the sky and her eyes were so full of childlike joy. Ellie had been distracted by the powerful being that radiated passion as they danced along the tracks.

She hadn’t noticed when their surroundings opened up.

Another bullet shot past, this time clipping the side of Ellie’s jacket and she clenched her teeth when it sliced into the side of her arm. Drawing a small cut from her skin.

She had to end this. She had to _stop_ this. She had to protect Dina and get her back home. She had to _save_ her.

Because if she didn’t…

Ellie laid Dina gently down onto the gravel between the tracks and her heart broke when the girl let out a small cry. Her hands grabbing and pulling at Ellie’s jacket. She could no longer form words between the whimpers that escaped her lips but Ellie could imagine what she was saying.

“Don’t _go_ . Don’t _leave_ me.”

Ellie crouched low, shielding Dina’s body beneath her’s as she brushed the girl’s hair out of her face. It stuck to the blood coating her fingers — _Dina’s_ blood — and the sweat quickly perspiring from the girl below her. “You’re gonna be okay, it’s alright. I’m gonna keep us safe. Just hold on, _please_ . I’ll be right back, you _hold on_.”

She cupped her bloody palm against Dina’s cheek and placed a forceful kiss to her forehead before running down the small hill from the tracks. It was time to _end_ this.

  
  


“Ellie.”

The freckled girl, worn down from spending three days in the medical center waiting for Dina to wake, glanced up from where she held the girl’s hand. Their fingers twined together as Ellie drew small details around the girl’s knuckles with a finger.

After she had carried her here, trailed by those she’d met at the gate, a couple of the nurses had transferred Dina to a stretcher and taken her away into the back of the building. Away from Ellie. Who fought against one of them, a big man who easily doubled Ellie’s size but still struggled to hold the girl back.

He had been the one to calm Ellie down enough, to help bring her back to sanity as he held her. His voice was gentle, and his arms secure as she broke down into tears. His name had been Brunus. A dark, middle-aged man who had been working as a nurse there for two years. Ellie had crumbled into the arms of a stranger but he had held his ground and her’s as well.

Until Joel came storming into the main room and then it was he who she clung to.

Ellie didn’t cry, not _ever_.

But the way Dina had slumped fully in her arms before she burst through the doors, the way her eyes had gotten foggier and _foggier…_

Ellie had been _scared_.

It took six hours before one of their surgeons had come out of the rooms, looking over the crowd until her gaze found Ellie’s.

Dina had been shot in the shoulder, grazing her collarbone and only a few centimeters from the subclavian artery which thankfully saved the girl’s arm. It hadn’t been a clean shot, and she had spent most of the time removing the fragmented bullet before patching Dina up.

Then it had been up to the injured girl if she was going to make it.

And she did, two days later. After Joel had to send Ellie home twice to eat and shower, Dina woke up in a room, attached to monitors and an IV, with a sleeping girl right beside her. Ellie had finally slept for the first time in the last fifty-three hours, with her head atop her folded arms and her hand closed tightly around Dina’s.

The girl had been so sleep heavy that she only smiled at Ellie as she raised her hand to run fingers through auburn hair. The motion, of course, let her recognize the binds her left arm was in. And that was enough to finally jostle Ellie awake.

They hadn’t talked about it.

What had happened at the gate. They hadn’t needed to. They both knew, and they both understood. Right now it was just them and they hadn’t really needed to talk, just exist together in the room as Dina tried to relax from all the pain and events that had perspired.

Ellie hadn’t left the room all day, and she wouldn’t until Dina was released. But as the girl called her name, and she looked up from where she fiddled with the girl’s fingers, Ellie smiled. Softly, and so innocently, that Dina squeezed the fingers she had between her own.

“Thank you.”

Ellie furrowed her brow at that, her mind reeling from everything she had been thinking in the few days she’d spent alone, waiting for Dina to wake. “For what? It was my fault.”

And it had been, Ellie should have paid more attention, should have kept aware, but instead, she let herself be distracted and now look what had happened.

“Ellie, in no way was it your fault,” Dina spoke strictly, her mouth downturning at what the taller girl had said. “It was those men’s fault for thinking they could take you, it was _our_ fault for not paying attention better, but in no way was it solely _your_ fault.” She squeezed Ellie’s hand again, a smile creeping along her lips and she looked into forest green eyes.

A brown meeting green and a green combating brown.

“You saved me.”

Ellie shook her head, attempting to withdraw her hand, “but I should have protected you, I should-“

 _“Ellie_ ,” Dina took a stronger grip on Ellie so she couldn’t let go. “I do not need your protection.”

When Ellie glanced at her shoulder dubiously, Dina laughed softly, “most of the time. I survived five years with nothing more than the shirt on my back out there. I can handle myself.”

“But if I hadn’t-“

“But if _we_ hadn't gotten distracted,” Dina interrupted her for the second time and Ellie sighed. “If _we_ had paid better attention, if _we_ had stayed safe then maybe events would have played out differently. But _Ellie_ ,” Dina released her hand and leaned forward. Cupping her chin to reconnect their eyes, and then holding the taller girl’s cheek. Brushing a thumb against the freckled skin beneath it. “It was _you_ who took out the men _,_ it was _you_ who got me home and it was _you_ who saved me. No one else.”

Ellie didn’t say anything after that, only bunching the thin blanket in her hands as she looked at Dina. Who held her gaze so fiercely, so _passionately_ , and so intensely that it made Ellie almost want to look away.

But she didn’t.

“You saved me Ellie, and I am thanking you for that, okay?”

She nodded finally, feeling a few tears escape from her eyes and a thumb instantly wipe them away. Dina’s eyes looked wet as well but she kept on smiling anyway. As if nothing in the past three days had taken place, as if it was still just the two of them.

Still just Ellie and Dina.

“Now come here,” Dina released her face and scooted over, lifting the worn blanket in welcome. “This bed is way too cold for my condition.”

So Ellie just giggled and obliged, crawling underneath and letting Dina lay on top of her. The injured arm cradled against her chest as the girl tucked her head into Ellie’s neck. She wrapped a secure arm around the girl’s waist, keeping her close and _safe,_ as they both finally relaxed _._

It didn’t take another five minutes for the two to fall asleep.

  


~

  


“Hey, El?”

Her hands were working on seeming together a tear that had appeared in one of her heavy jackets — a denim-like cloth that was worn soft and was inlaced with a fuzzy white material — Dina had found it for her on one of their patrols. The two of them had just gotten home from the clinic about an hour ago, after spending three days waiting for Dina to be released.

Ellie worked the needle with the thin string along the hole, drawing together the sides — section by section, knotting each new loop to make the seem solid and strong. She can’t remember where she had learned to sow, it was one of those things she’d learned so young that now it was just a part of her. Just a thing she _did_. A thing she was.

She hummed when she heard Dina call for her, a questioning buzz in the back of her throat that allowed her to answer without careening from her task.

“I can’t really… I can’t lift my shoulders right now, and I was wondering if you would help…”

Ellie glanced up at the girl in the hallway behind her, behind the couch she rested upon with the jacket in her lap, she raised an eyebrow in question until she saw the towel in the girl’s arms.

“I can’t even take off my fucking shirt,” Dina wouldn’t look at her, and her voice sounded so agitated. Ellie’s heart stopped for a few seconds before stuttering to life again, a bit like the girl’s words.

“You want help?”

Dina attempted a shrug and then winced as the pain racked through her body, a short hiss escaping between her teeth, “that’s what I’ve been gettin’ at, Stretch.”

Ellie sat there frozen for a second, her mind whirring at the thought of what she was about to do. But as she looked at Dina, who just looked as if she could use a week of sleep, her injured arm slung loosely in a sling, and whose eyes plead with her’s kindly.

She nodded dumbly.

“Yeah, okay, sure.” And she put the jacket on the coffee table and followed the girl to the bathroom.

It was a lot harder to function once they were both in the small room and Dina had turned to her after setting down the towel, her shoulder sling removed for the time being. The water was running, and she could already feel the start of mugginess in the room. The beginning of steam that would soon fog up the mirror and any other reflective surface.

Ellie stood there awkwardly, looking at Dina who was waiting patiently for the girl to start but she just didn’t know _how_. Her hands were shaking as she took staggered breaths.

Finally, with built courage, Ellie stepped forward, only a few inches from Dina, and slipped her fingers beneath the bottom of the girl’s shirt. The back of her hands brushed warm skin and they shook harder. Until Dina took one of them with her good arm and stilled her.

“Ellie.”

She took a deep breath and looked up to Dina’s understanding eyes, they were gentle in the steamy air. Affection pouring off of them in waves that Ellie finally caught her breath. Calming her nerves and racing chest with slow intakes of air.

“It’s just a shower,” Dina smiled, one side of her mouth raising in a half smirk but not in the teasing kind of way. She smiled like she knew what was going through Ellie’s head, she smiled like she understood the boundaries Ellie was trying to keep. “Nothing else.”

She nodded and finally lifted the shirt over the girl’s head, carefully removing both of Dina’s arms before tossing it by the door. Ellie kept her eyes directed upwards as Dina removed her jeans and underwear, only looking back down when the girl had turned so that Ellie could unhook her bra.

That sensation wasn’t one Ellie was going to forget for a _long_ time.

When Dina turned back around, Ellie looked up again and the shorter girl chuckled, “you’re such a dork.” Before she turned to adjust the faucet, “now it’s your turn, tiger.”

Right.

Ellie quickly undressed before coming up behind Dina to offer her a hand into the shower. Hoping to god the girl wouldn’t turn around, because her skin was cold and she could feel the goosebumps rising as it hit the warm air.

But she did, of course, when they had both entered under the hot stream, Dina’s back against the water and Ellie’s front catching the aftermath. Ellie pointedly kept her gaze above Dina’s head, not daring to look down in fear of whatever she might catch in the girl’s eyes.

That didn’t last long though, as a hand came and touched her cheek, a thumb guiding her head to look at the girl in front of her. With a gaze so generous, so perceptive, so full of empathy. Eyes that were so brown and foggy between the steam and the grey that sat beneath them.

“Look at me,” she whispered, her thumb tracing over the scarred skin of Ellie’s cheek. “It’s okay to look.”

The taller girl had to take a deep breath before nodding. The air coursing through her and releasing with a shudder as her eyes finally trekked downwards. Past the girl’s sharp collarbones and to what she held beneath.

Ellie’s heart hammered as her eyes swept over the girl’s olive skin, from her chest, speckled with droplets of water that were still cascading against them, to a soft stomach that was free of any solid form but looked delicate to the touch. Her eyes continued their travel, their journey, over slender but defined legs and a small patch of hair that had Ellie instantly looking back up to murky eyes.

But Dina had been doing that same as she had, and Ellie’s chest _burned_ and spread with red at the recognition. The shorter girl noticed and smirked upwards at her when that happened. Her hand falling to trace Ellie’s neck before dropping.

Dina tilted her head back into the stream finally, closing her eyes as she did and Ellie couldn’t help but watch, but to stare at the girl bare before her. The muggy room now feeling small and warm, instead of exposing as it had.

Ellie almost felt guilty about her gaze until Dina opened her eyes and matched Ellie with an intensity so fierce it sent a swoop through her stomach.

It was like Dina was challenging her to continue watching, daring her to look away.

Ellie’s hands fumbled for the shampoo when Dina then turned around, shoulders tense as the hot water hit untouched skin of the girl.

It was memorizing, being in this moment with Dina. Helping her through such a daily process everyone went through, but together, it held an intimacy unknown to many. As Ellie helped scrub soap into the shorter girl’s hair, felt her melt and lean into the touch. As she helped wash the top of the girl’s chest and back, her hands steady and tender with their movements as she passed over the injured shoulder.

Dina trembled under Ellie’s touch, and it sent such a rush through the girl she didn’t think any could match.

When they were done and had flipped positions so that Ellie was under the slowly cooling water, Dina came up behind her slowly. A hand wrapped itself around Ellie’s stomach and she held her breath as the girl’s form pressed against her own.

Ellie could feel so many different parts of Dina in that moment that it made her mind dizzy and her head spin.

A gentle kiss was pressed against the back of her neck and Ellie whimpered quietly. So subtly that no one would notice. But the tightening of the arm around her midsection deemed otherwise.

“Thank you,” Dina whispered into her skin, and she could feel the breath cool the dampness surrounding her shoulders.

They let her words hang in the air as they stood under the water together, Dina’s hand slowly caressing along Ellie’s stomach and along her toned abdomen to idly trace the large scar that rested there— a thin line of raised skin. The scar that Dina had helped patch up only last summer.

Ellie was shaking beneath the girl’s touch, each brush of fingers sending warmth through her core and down between her legs. An area she shouldn’t be thinking about in this moment. But with her eyes squeezed shut from the girl behind her she just couldn’t _help_ it.

Dina finally leaned away and then suddenly chuckled. He laughter jostling between their bodies and Ellie opened her eyes in confusion.

“What?”

“I guess I just never noticed...” Dina didn’t move any further away.

“What?” Ellie asked again, her already rapid heart rate skipping.

“Your freckles,” the girl breathed behind her, her voice lilted with a smile, “they’re everywhere.”

And as if to prove her point, a set of warm lips found Ellie’s shoulders and pressed down in a kiss, “here.”

Again between her shoulder blades, “and here.”

And in the center of her back, almost unheard over the water because it was whispered just so, “and here.”

Ellie was shivering uncontrollably when Dina finally came back up, smiling into the taller girl’s shoulder. Ellie could feel the gentle press of teeth into her skin from a giddy grin and her mouth couldn’t help but follow.

“Come on, Stretch,” Dina subsequently released her arm from Ellie’s stomach. Her fingers trailing along the skin until they lost contact as she stepped back, “it’s getting cold.”

  


~

  


There was a low grunt in the kitchen as Ellie walked from the bedroom — fixing her hair into a bun after she’d woken up. It was a small noise, almost like a yell, and followed by a small slam. Ellie rounded the doorway leading in and saw Dina’s back, the girl faced the counter as she leaned on her hand — assumably the one that had slammed against the marble — her head tucked down.

Ellie watched as she straightened again, spine rigid as Dina breathed in a settling breath, and leaned up on her toes to reach for one of the skillets they kept on top of the cupboards. Her hand almost made it to the top of the wooden cabinets before Ellie watched a twitch originate from the girl’s injured shoulder. Watched it travel to the girl’s neck and down her spine.

Dina cried out softly again as she took her hand back.

The taller girl approached finally, her hand placing itself softly on the small of Dina’s back as she reached for the pan herself. But the girl shoved her away.

“No, Ellie, I can do it. Let _me_ do it.” Her voice was rough as it snapped. Words laced with a small mix of venom and it made the freckled girl shrink, surprised.

“Dina,” Ellie spoke softly, questioning, as she reached up slowly again, “Dina, it’s okay-“

“No, it’s not!” Her voice halted any movement without a single touch. “I should be able to _do_ these things, I _need_ to be able to do these things. I can’t always expect help, I can’t-“ Dina breathed heavily, her eyes glaring but not at Ellie. “I can’t keep _being_ like this. I’m _useless.”_

“Dina,” Ellie spoke firmly, like Dina had at the Bay, like she’d done so often to the taller girl when her mind would stir crazy. “You are _not_ useless. You’re _hurt,_ and you’re healing _._ There’s a difference. Right now, you can’t do everything, and that’s okay. It’s _okay_ to ask for help. It’s _okay_ to heal. This isn’t your forever.”

Dina still wouldn’t meet her eyes, so Ellie stepped closer, inserting herself into the girl’s line of sight. “This _isn’t_ your forever.”

Finally, Dina nodded slowly and closed her eyes. Breathing in a sigh of calm. Ellie leaned past her and reached for the small metal pan. Bringing it down to set on the marble counters. Its soft clink was solidifying.

Ellie pulled Dina close, trailing her hand down the shorter girl’s arm and entwining their fingers. “Let me help,” she reached with her other hand to enclose the uninjured one between them. “Let me be your hands.”

Dina stared down, the fingers tightening in the hold as she nodded again, reluctantly. Not in surrender, but in acknowledgment. In acceptance.

In _relief._

 

~

  


Ellie got assigned to a patrol nine days after Dina was well enough to come home. She got the assignment from Joel the night before, when she went to his place to pick up dinner — his way of contributing.

He wasn’t strict about it, but he wasn’t completely gentle either — Joel never was. He was hesitant though, as he told her, almost weary for her reaction. But Ellie just shrugged, it was only a matter of time before they needed her out there again.

Dina was less so thrilled.

As Ellie explained to her that night, unwrapping their meals from Joel and setting them out — the foil crinkled into a ball and thrown into a bin beneath the sink — the injured girl was quiet.

She didn’t say much about it as they ate, but Ellie could see the cautious fear playing behind her eyes. She could see the way Dina kept looking at her, even when she thought Ellie wasn’t paying attention. She could see the way her knuckles were white as she tried to spoon the reheated mash potatoes from her plate.

Ellie held her tightly that night, and Dina returned the favor. Clinging to her like it was their last chance. At some point, when the world around them had gone quiet, she felt Dina crying against her chest.

Warm tears soaking the shoulder of her shirt and she pulled the girl closer, running fingers through her hair soothingly — it was a newly found gesture that Dina liked. They fell asleep again like that, curled together, but still careful of Dina’s arm. And they woke up with salt dried to their faces and throats worn from unsounded cries.

Dina helped her pack, just as they had done time and time before. Loading a bag of supplies, and making sure there were enough rounds and rations for the trip. The girl’s hands were shaking as she helped Ellie into her jacket and the straps of her bag around her shoulders.

She smiled at Dina in thanks before turning to head out. She could see the sun just rising outside the window, as dawn was right around the corner.

Ellie approached the door hesitantly, her hand brushing the bronze handle but not grasping. Enough that she could feel it’s cool texture but not enough pressure to do anything about it.

Dina stood in the hallway watching her, the time for crying gone as they stared at each other. Accepting.

Ellie breathed, and she looked over the other girl’s form. Her eyes caught the shirt that sat upon Dina’s shoulders and recognized it as hers — the green flannel. Forest eyes caught the loose ends of hair sticking from the sloppy bun Ellie had tried to help her with earlier that morning. She caught socked feet and folded hands and the tiny moles along her forearms and the way her nose sloped and the way her eyes _shined_.

Brightly.

And encouragingly.

Ellie breathed again, and her hand left the cool door handle.

And it reached the back of Dina’s neck instead. After crossing the room between them and brushing along the girl’s cheek until it tangled in the baby hairs beneath her bun.

And Dina breathed, with a gasp, shakily as she stared into forest green eyes that held hope. And an ounce of fear.

A hand slowly grasped Ellie’s elbow and she knew.

Ellie finally _knew._

So she took the plunge.

Ellie dipped her head slowly, closing the difference their height made as Dina met her halfway. She could feel the quick intake of breath from the girl’s nose against her cheek, could feel it press into the freckled skin as she took chapped lips between her own. Her hand drew Dina closer and the one on her elbow slipped up her arm to hold her cheek.

The fingertips crossing into her hairline and pulling her close, _closer_.

Dina’s lips tasted like the mint toothpaste they used that morning and the eggs she had cooked hastily. Dina tasted like the waking up and like the moon when it shone brightly. She tasted like salt, and like the crisp air of dawn.

Ellie pulled back slightly to readjust and Dina instantly leaned forward, not giving her time before their mouths were connecting in a series of smaller touches. Lingering, and lasting, until a slamming hand knocked on the door and they drew apart hesitantly. Only leaving enough space so they could breathe, as their foreheads stayed together. Sticky with sweat, and clinging, but neither girl cared, neither noticed.

Ellie’s heart was soaring, and her eyes were squeezed shut as their breaths mingled between them. The out, and the in, and the heaviness of it all.

“I have to go,” she whispered. And Dina nodded, carefully as to not pull away from the skin that touched.

“I know.”

She breathed in shakily and Ellie’s voice was hesitant, _pleading_. “Dina I-”

“I know.” Ellie finally opened her eyes and saw the laced gray ones staring back. So warmly, so sweetly, and they held tracks of water yet to be shed. “Come back to me.”

Ellie’s hand slipped away from her neck to wipe away a line of tears that had escaped. Dina leaned into the touch needily, pressing a kiss to her palm before looking back into dark eyes of the evergreens.

Ellie shuddered, her voice nothing more than a cracked whisper.

“I will.”

  


It took four days for the patrol to finally make it home, four days of wandering and scavenging. Of clearing out Infected that had wandered too close.

Four days of Ellie looking into the nearby rivers and seeing Dina’s eyes. Four days of kicking rocks along their path and thinking of their patrols together. Four days of imagining the way Dina laughed, and all the variations that she did so. Four days of feeling the girl beneath her fingers, what it’s like to sleep close to her, what the girl looked like with shower water dripping down her curves, what her mouth tasted like, what it _felt_ like.

Ellie spent four days thinking about Dina and Dina alone. And the itch to go home to the girl, to greet her, to _touch_ her.

To kiss her.

It was driving Ellie stir crazy and she calculated how long it would take them to get back with each step they took further and further away from the settlement.

After four days of traveling, they finally made it back to the eastern gate where she saw Cory on duty. Every time she saw him she forgot how much older he looked now, he was growing to be quite a fine young man. But as she passed through and waved at the boy, Ellie wasted no time checking in and getting home.

 _Home_ home.

It was late, with the sun already down and most people tucked away in their houses. The streets were dark and only lit briefly by the passing windows.

Ellie ran, not caring that she was the only one in the street and that her backpack slammed into her with each step. She ran, with the nighttime buzzing around her, and the moon lighting her path.

A smile broke onto her face when her house came into sight and she dashed the remaining feet before slamming the door open and dropping her stuff at the foot of it.

She heard a yelp from the kitchen around the corner, and as she turned it, passing through the doorway, she saw Dina glaring at her from the sink. “Oh my god, Ellie, you scared the shit out of m-“

Ellie wasted no time going to the girl, cupping her face and pulling her in for the second kiss they’d ever shared. Dina squeaked in surprise but didn’t pull away. Only leaning further in as a hand ran along Ellie’s hip and to the small of her back. Pulling their bodies together as close as they could be.

She pushed against the girl, her back meeting the counter behind them, and Ellie held her there. Dina gasping as their hips locked and pinned her to the sink but she didn’t fight it. Instead, reaching up and tangling her fingers into the loosely tied hair on Ellie’s head.

A shudder ran through her at the feeling, of Dina’s fingers in her hair, and the breath against her lips. She felt Dina smile at that, and her demeanor faltered. Her movements growing nervous at the unknown territory she had crossed. But the girl in front of her took it all in stride.

Flipping them graciously, with Ellie now pinned against the counter and Dina holding her there gently. One of her hands gripped the marble as the other fell to Dina’s waist, the touch soft with fabric of an oversized sweater. Dina was still smiling into her mouth and Ellie giggled nervously at the turn of position.

Dina’s lips grew as she pulled away, finally looking into Ellie’s eyes since she’d arrived. “Welcome home, Stretch.”

“Hey,” the taller girl choked out and Ellie’s face grew hot, red blushing along her cheeks, up to her ears and down to her chest.

Dina’s smile grew brighter, not bigger but more luminous as she took in the faltering girl before her. The hand, that wasn’t trapped inside a sling, rose and brushed some of the loose strands of Ellie’s auburn hair behind an ear. Murky eyes followed their hand and Ellie got lost in the rain doused lakes all over again. The swirl of brown meeting gray, existing together as one instead of combating.

“Sorry for the ambush, I’ve just- I’ve been thinking about doing that the whole time I was gone.” Ellie stuttered, as eyes finally glanced back up to meet her own.

“Yeah? The whole time?” Dina smirked, the hand against Ellie’s ear moving down to play with the collar of her shirt.

She nodded dumbly, and Dina leaned in close again, so that Ellie could feel the words moving against her lips from ones not her own. The quiet breath, and ghost of whisper, buzzing against her skin as her eyes lost focus from the proximity and closed.

“What a coincidence.”

And Dina kissed _her_ now. Slower than they had before, out of the two other times they’d done this. Slower, and more cautious as they took their time to learn the movements of each other’s mouth. Of each other’s bodies.

The way one would gasp at the trace of a tongue, the way one's hands would grow tighter, more solid, as gentle teeth pulled on a bottom lip. Ellie learned the way Dina trembled beneath her fingers when she would ghost them up her neck. Ellie found that Dina didn’t need as much air as she and would pull away only for a quick gasp before coming back. Ellie memorized the way it felt to have a hand grasping at her arm and her face and her neck. To have someone’s nose pressing against her cheek and bumping into her own.

She learned the way Dina tasted, beneath anything else. Apart from the mint and the recent dinner and the salt.

Ellie was careful not to jostle Dina’s injured arm as she kept pulling the girl closer. And Dina was more than willing to grant her more.

The light of the kitchen buzzed a soft yellow and reflected the inside against the glass-paned window besides showing through to the outer world. Where small fireflies lit up the dusk and filtered out into the night.

The house smelled of chicken from a meal cooked hours before and was warm from the late summer heat. But it was welcoming, and all-encompassing, as Ellie kissed her girl in the kitchen of their home.

  


~

  


Kissing Dina slowly became Ellie’s favorite passing time. No matter where they were — as long as it wasn’t in front of other people, they were glued to each other like magnets. They kissed everywhere now, at home while they cooked, and on the couch during movies, before they went to bed at night.

Ellie no longer went home to sleep. She didn’t think Joel had noticed, not since she had been staying with Dina to help with her shoulder. But even now, that the girl was well enough and the sling was gone, she still didn’t go home.

Maybe Joel did notice. Maybe he just knew.

When Dina started going on patrols again, they were hesitant at first, overly cautious through every step as they began. But they got accustomed to the feel again, and soon it was just the two of them.

On the third patrol they’d taken since Dina had gotten better, Ellie took her to the lake. She knew they were supposed to be serious in their scavenging for medical supplies, but it was _hot_. And what’s wrong with a small break every now and again.

Joel had taught her to swim almost as soon as they’d moved into the settlement. And Ellie was ever grateful. After the near-death experience of drowning, after feeling what it was like to bring water into her lungs and to fade beneath murky rapids — the transition was hard. Getting back in. But Joel made her feel safe, and the water _hadn’t_ been moving, so she learned. And it had been easier than she’d thought.

The body of water was monstrous in front of them, spreading out and wrapping in a bend further than their eyes could see. Trees lined its shores in the early summer evening, and the water was humming with a warm energy as it sat.

Ellie pulled Dina to the spot she knew of best, where some would bathe on patrols if they had grown too extensive. It was a shallow area, now shaded by trees, that made the air cool and the temperature drop around the slowly moving water.

Dina gripped Ellie’s hand excitedly as she pulled her along — that was new too. On patrols where it was just them, and they were in a safe location. Their hands would meld together like welding, curling together with linking fingers and soft touches where you couldn’t find where one girl began and the other ended.

Ellie guided her through the brush, stepping over roots and small bushes until they came to the shoreline, where the water didn’t lap at the edge, for it wasn’t moving, but settled, meeting the land in one.

Dina breathed in beside her, and Ellie glanced at her. Noticing the way she took in the surroundings, and how the lowering sun cast shadows of the lake in her eyes.

And then her hand was forgotten as the shorter girl stepped closer to the water, crouching down to test the temperature and gleefully humming when it met her standards. And then she was looking at Ellie, smiling wistful, teeth shining and joy gleaming against dark irises. “Care for a swim, Stretch?”

“That’s kinda why I brought us here,” Ellie matched the smile — less so, as hers were always smaller — but eyes lit with the same excitement.

Dina didn’t say anything to combat that, only looking back over the water as her hands dipped to take a hold of her shirt — their packs had been discarded at the tree line. And then her stomach was bare before Ellie, who stood there frozen. The breath caught in her lungs.

She hadn’t considered disrobing to swim, but Dina had other ideas it seemed.

Ellie hadn’t seen the girl bare since the shower they’d taken months before, while Dina was still healing. And it brought those memories flooding back as the girl by the shore reached down to pull off her jeans as well.

Dina looked over her shoulder at Ellie, who still stood up the shore aways, eyes wide and chin slightly dropped. She began walking backwards into the water, her eyes locked on the taller girl’s with a smirk.

“Come on, El, the water is _fine_.” Her head shook in a smile as she spoke, arms raising in an invitation.

Ellie scoffed, her hands moving to work at the belt on her jeans, “You did not just quote that dumb movie at me.”

“ _Dumb_ movie? Ellie that is a _masterpiece,_ you just have no taste.” Her hands lowered to the water, trailing the top as small ripples exerted from soft fingertips.

When Dina had gotten up to her waist in water, the greenish waves lapping at her stomach and clouding the vision of legs and hips, did Ellie finish compiling her clothes and start towards the lake’s edge. Dina’s eyes walked Ellie’s body shamelessly, lingering at the black boyshorts framing her hips — she may or may not have worn purposely.

The girl in the water began moving backwards again as Ellie got closer, going deep until she was almost to her shoulders and smirking. The water at Ellie's feet was freezing and she shivered, her body finding a new source of shock each step she took deeper. But Dina kept going, and by the time Ellie reached her they were at their necks, using soft movements to stay afloat.

Ellie smiled at her again, and when Dina moved closer, lips ghosting Ellie’s, her eyes fluttered and closed solidly. But soft lips never met her own. Instead, hard hands met her shoulders and then a massive weight was pushing her _down_ , and her head sunk beneath the surface.

She came up gasping, as the surprise had made her breathe some of the misty lake water. “You _dick_.” Ellie screeched, having to push hair out of her eyes to even see the other girl.

The other girl who was doubled over — as much as she could be while swimming — and laughing harder than Ellie had seen. Full intakes of breath that were racking Dina’s body and making her struggle to stay above the surface. She got to the point where Ellie couldn’t even hear her anymore for she was laughing so hard. So she splashed the girl, water raining down on a shining face as Ellie pouted playfully.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Dina cooed, finally calming down enough that she could breathe and swim back to Ellie. Her hands helped push the remaining hair from Ellie’s eyes as she leaned close again, “that was just too easy.” Dina whispered against her lips and finally did kiss her this time. Slowly, as her arms settled on Ellie’s shoulders.

Dina’s stomach met her own and she had to gasp, feeling the skin against skin, feeling the partially bare hips tucking into her own. Ellie had to stumble back a step onto solid but mushy ground to settle herself. But Dina wasn’t done as she followed the girl, setting herself on one of Ellie’s thighs and trapping their bodies together.

Ellie was having a hard time breathing with the ministrations happening below water. Her hands still hadn’t found purchase on the girl, not knowing where exactly to place them that wouldn’t make Dina uncomfortable. But finally, she decided to rest them against the girl’s sides. Sliding along the bare skin under her ribs and along her belly.

Dina shuddered against her, lips unhooking from her own as a quiet whine escaped. And hips bucked into her stomach.

Ellie swooped, her stomach and her mind, colliding together at the sounds and sensations coming from the girl above her. It was becoming a _lot_ , and her hands were shaking as they explored more of the open skin beneath the water.

But as much as she was enjoying this, as much as she could tell Dina was enjoying this. Ellie wasn’t a pushover.

Ellie raised her thigh, the one that sat between Dina’s legs and the girl bucked again, wrapping herself tighter and clinging to Ellie beneath the water as their mouths parted again. A whimper came from the shorter girl as she moved her head beside Ellie’s, breathing hard. “ _Fuck_ , Ellie.”

Ellie turned her head to tuck into Dina’s neck, placing small kisses against the damp skin as she smiled, “and I thought you said _I_ was easy.”

And then Ellie jumped forward. Plunging the both of them underwater.

  
  


~

  


Ellie found quickly after their lake trip that Dina was the biggest fucking tease she’d ever met. And not in the joking way of course, because Dina had always been playful, had always bugged her in the way that made her roll her eyes before shoving her against the wall and making her forget about anything she’d just said.

Dina was a tease in an intimate way, _sexually_.

She would tease Ellie while they cooked dinner, pulling the taller girl in for a kiss, trapping her against the counter and running her hands up the inside of Ellie’s shirt, to then stop cold and get back to cooking.

Dina would tease when Ellie tried to kiss her in the mornings. Diving in to brush their lips together, enough to make the taller girl lean closer, searching for something more while she pulled away. Ellie would chase and Dina would pull, until a freckled face would give up and then she’d finally give in. Closing the distance and taking a quivering lip between her own.

She even cheated in a chess match they had going for days. When Ellie had been about to win she crossed the table and climbed into Ellie’s lap. Kissing her until Ellie couldn’t even remember what color she’d been.

The girl’s hands were constantly on the taller girl. Running along her back towards her stomach as she hugged her from behind while cooking. Along her shoulders and down her arms when Ellie helped in the garden. Up her neck and into the girl’s auburn hair as they danced at night — moving the record player for music and sometimes not. Dina’s hand would burn along Ellie’s collarbones as she helped fix her shirts, they would leave a scorching buzz while tracing her tattoo, they made her stomach swoop when they found their way under her shirt, tracing the hard ridges of her stomach and trailing the curve of her spine.

Dina was a tease and she was _fucking_ good at it. Leaving Ellie a whimpering and bumbling mess more times than the tall girl could count. Leaving her breathless and wanting, skin buzzing and core _aching_.

She was a constant in Ellie’s mind, a fog that couldn’t be blown away, a murky ghost who haunted and invaded her every thought.

And Ellie _craved_ it. She _loved_ it.

She wouldn’t trade that feeling for the world.

There was a night when summer was turning to fall. Leaves beginning to grow red and orange as they blew through the town. Weather dropping in temperature and rain being more consistent than before. There was a night when they curled together on the couch, as they did most evenings when both were home. A classic playing on the small screen in front of them, a movie they had seen countless times but was one of Dina’s favorite.

The girl was tucked against her chest, under Ellie’s arm and head beneath her chin. A position they had found even before their touches grew more serious. Before Ellie had known, before _Dina_ had truly known, what they were for each other.

Dina curled around her, their legs tucked together as the noise of the television filled the space surrounding them. Ellie could feel the girl shifting above her, stirring. But her mind was lost in the screen so she was surprised when she felt a warm pair of lips trace her neck. Sending a shiver through her at the intimate touch.

The lips closed gently, capturing a bit of skin between them as they touched down and down again. The movements became sharper, harder, after a bit. And Ellie whimpered when she was met with a graze of teeth and a swipe of tongue. A smile followed that one, followed the reaction it had on the taller girl.

The movie was lost after that, lost to lips traveling along her neck, lost to a hand that slipped under her shirt and danced along her stomach. Lost to the touch of the blazing girl against her. Who breathed in each sigh, swallowed each whimper, as her touches grew bolder.

Dina hovered over her after a bit, mouth moved to capture Ellie’s as her hands still played beneath Ellie’s loose tank top. She hovered, and then she sat. Legs drawing over Ellie’s lap until she was straddling the trembling girl. Whose hands still carefully stayed _above_ clothing.

Dina drew the air out of her as the touches continued, as lips went back down to her neck and hands roamed further. Ellie had to tilt her head back when teeth came to play again, and her hands were shaking while clenching in Dina’s shirt.

But the girl drew away, with soft kisses up her chin to look Ellie in the eyes, warmly, and understandably. “It’s okay to touch.” She whispered, words echoing against Ellie’s lips. “It’s okay.”

When Ellie still didn’t move, her eyes pleading with the girl who sat staring down at her. Dina just smirked and leaned further back, hands moving down to her waist to draw the pajama shirt up and above her head. Flinging it somewhere behind the couch and down the hallway.

Ellie’s breath was lost for the second time that night. As her eyes roamed downwards, to a bare stomach and sculpted shoulders. Dina was soft in the way she wasn’t, soft in the way her skin was smooth to the touch, soft in the way Ellie was rigid. Her eyes locked onto the gray bra that encased Dina’s chest.

But not for long because the girl was leaning back into her, kissing from her cheek to her nose and then her lips. Grabbing at them softly, and pulling. Their noses in a constant battle of direction.

Ellie’s hands finally fell upon the girl’s stomach and Dina pushed into it. She pushed into the calloused hands of the girl below her and Ellie memorized the way her body curved. Running her hands gently from her stomach and up her ribs, wrapping around to her back where she ran her fingertips beneath the straps of the bra.

The shorter girl sucked in a breath at that, pulling away and closing her eyes as she rested her forehead against another. Her hands met Ellie’s behind her back, curling their fingers together before undoing the hooks with ease and launching the garment with the shirt.

The girl below her froze altogether, air trapped in her lungs, hands hovering in air and mouth in awe. Her eyes stared at Dina, not daring to look down.

And the girl giggled, she _giggled,_ above her. “Come on El, can’t have you mentally combusting on me.” Dina brought a hand to rest against Ellie’s cheek, thumb brushing the freckled skin beneath.

“Right, sorry.”

Dina smirked at the choked answer, “it’s okay, Ellie,” she breathed against her lips, “it’s cute.” And she was kissing her again.

The hand on her cheek remained but Ellie felt the other draw downwards, running from her shoulder to her elbow to finally wrap around her wrist. The taller girl was lost in a heated battle of lips that she didn’t notice the other girl lift her hand until it was placed against her chest. Their fingers tangling together as Dina folded Ellie’s palm around her breast.

The feeling was electric. As the pulses between them shot through Ellie’s fingers and down her wrist. She trembled as she pulled away from Dina’s lips, breathing shakily with eyes clenched shut. A smile pressed against her as the girl let go of her hand. The breathing against her cheek was rapid like her own, and the knowledge of that made her stomach lift and warmth spread under her skin.

Dina pressed closer into the touch, into Ellie’s hand, who was now of its own control. She gently caressed the skin, taking hold of its ample size as she swiped a thumb over its peak. And the girl before her whimpered, _whimpered_ against her cheek. She could hear the hitch in breath, could feel Dina tuck her head closer to her neck as her hand moved slowly. Teasingly so.

But this aura. This atmosphere of quiet and of breathlessness and of low humming electricity all came to a halt when the door behind the couch shook with a rapid few pounds. They both jumped, and Dina was quick to dive under the blanket and curl into Ellie’s chest again, as Joel entered not a second later — knocking for them was more of a signal of entry rather than a permission of one.

Ellie didn’t dare look back as her old man stepped into the room, “Hey girls, you have that small bag of carrots I asked for?”

Ellie sat mortified — red as a pepper, and breaths quickening in how she tried to slow them — as the shorter girl directed Joel to its place in the kitchen. He wasn’t gone but a short moment later, and Dina had just giggled into her neck after he’d left. Short and simple sounds in contrast to what they had been building earlier.

They didn’t talk after that, after the laughter and mortification and expired. They grew silent, with content sighs and a warmer hold on one another as they let their minds be lost in the movie once again. Dancing pictures reflecting off dreamy girls.

It wasn’t until they headed to bed that Ellie realized the girl’s shirt and bra sat on the floor only feet from the doorway.

  


~

  


Ellie was sixteen when she stepped into Hank’s old office area. Its walls were a bleak yellow and covered in sketches that were all half complete. There was a portrait or painting here and there, but they were few and scarce.

Hank was the town's current electrician, or at least one of them. But instead of working on the dam like most, he helped with house repairs and wiring light fixtures and such. The one thing that made Hank stand out though, was his talent for art, and the fact that he had been able to build a tattoo gun from scratch using spare parts.

He didn’t do them often, too busy with his job at the settlement of doing simple things like sleeping, which nobody in the town got enough of. But when Hank did do them, they were beautiful and intricate. And not cheap.

The day Ellie had met Hank was when she started helping Gloria at the food station, being too young for much else in the town. She helped serve the food that the woman cooked in the back. On trays or in paper bags if asked. It was simple, and a good way to get to know most of the residents in the town.

Which of course, is how she happened upon Hank. Who took one look at her, and smiled, as if he knew something she hadn’t.

“Your Joel’s kid right?”

He stood before her, head clear of hair but a face trailing a beard of at least three inches. His arms were heavy set, and not an inch of them were clear of ink — Ellie admired that — they held out his tray for lunch that day and the girl was working on filling it with what they had on hand.

“Yeah,” she glanced up at him, cautious, “that’s me.”

His smile grew bigger, “knew it,” he had an accent, one that made his words tougher than they should have sounded, and Ellie couldn’t place it. “Your old man's told me about ya, s’told me ‘bout that.”

He took his arm and pointed at the scar on Ellie’s, one that was notable because her kitchen shirt had rolled sleeves.

“You ever want it covered up?” He smirked at her. Not in the unfriendly or snide way, but the smirk that’s used to encourage. A more of a lopsided smile.

“I- I never thought about it,” she mumbled quickly. Ellie wasn’t one to be intimidated, not easily. But for some reason, she felt as if she needed to impress this man. To prove herself.

And of course, she had thought about it. She thought about it every morning when she would get dressed and her outfit choice was based around what would cover it the most. She thought about it when she took showers and had the skin bare and raw for her eyes. So she could see the way it curled around her skin, how it bubbled, how it had engraved and branded her for life.

Of _course,_ she’d thought about it.

“Well if you ever get ‘round to thinkin’,” he took his now complete tray and stepped back, “ask your old man. He’ll tell ya where t’find me.”

And he left with a wink.

And a dazed Ellie still holding a ladle, now empty of chili.

She thought about it constantly after that, when she would fall asleep at night and trace the bites ridges in the darkness. When she helped Gloria in the afternoon and when she played with Cory on the ball field and when she’d greet Joel at home every evening.

It was in the back of her mind like a gnat. Buzzing, and stirring, and _annoying_. But never doing any damage.

She swatted the gnat.

Hanks office was dim, she could tell it wasn’t really used as an office, not for electrical work at least. It was dim but not musty, yellow but not pasty. The room was hazy and warm. Warm with shadows in the corners from low light and warm from the constricted feeling it put on one’s chest.

But the type of constriction one feels underneath a heavy blanket. Safe, solid, and secure.

When she’d talk to Joel, who then directed her to Hank, it had been easy. They set up a time, and a day, and a place to meet.

The office was empty though, and Ellie stood confused, wondering if she’d got the time wrong when a door opened in the back and the bald head of Hank poked itself out. “Hey kid, right back here, got the ol’ lady all set up ‘n purrin’.”

She didn’t know what that meant, but she followed him back anyways to a room whose walls were even more littered than the other room. Drawings of anything and everything — sketches, doodles, color penciled cartoons. It was like a collage of art.

Hank had gone to the middle of the room where a chair had been set up, and he fell onto a stool beside it — it looked like it would break under the big man's weight but it held as he rolled over to a table.

“So I know we haven’t really talked ‘bout what you want, but I’ve been brainstormin’ and I was thinkin’ somethin’ like this.” He lifted a stencil from the desk, which lay on a small dark machine which Ellie could easily guess its use.

The paper was scrawled along, with several erasings and redoings, but the design was obvious. And it made Ellie’s throat catch, her heart stopping in a way she didn’t know possible.

Hank smirked at the reaction, setting down the paper closer to her as he began unloading a drawer of supplies, “Imma guess that’s a ‘yes’ then?”

Ellie nodded quickly and breathed again.

The design had been beautiful, and _personal_.

It took another half hour for them to place it and get her set up on the chair, but when the gun began to buzz, and it touched down on her skin. There was only relief that flooded from the needlepoint.

  
  


Dina liked to trace the tattoo with her fingers whenever they sat together — before they had even grown close. When they watched movies, or ate lunch, or sat under the tree at Tom’s, it was like a magnet for the girl.

At first, she would trace the dark fern the ran along the outside of her arm, migrating to the hollowness of the next and finally to the moth. It’s eyes dark and it’s wings shuddering under the ministrations of the girl. The inside of her elbow was sensitive she found out, and Dina would sometimes tease her about that.

As the months, and soon years grew on, though, Ellie began to notice a different pattern that Dina would take with the tattoo. Her fingers no longer traced the spindly ferns or the hollow leaves, they no longer drew down to the moth. With its uneven wings and twin dots, which no other moth owned. Her fingers seemed to linger in the middle, apart from the tattoo altogether.

It took a long time for Ellie to figure out Dina was tracing her scar. Tracing the tiny divots where teeth had taken flesh, brushing along the bubbled edges where the infection had tried to grow roots.

Ellie had gasped at the realization, and it drew Dina’s attention from her arm. They had been curled together in the couch, watching a movie they had seen dozens of times before, but one they hadn’t planned on watching anyway.

Dina looked at her curiously, and Ellie felt a flutter of emotion in the pit of her stomach. A curling sensation that made her chest clench.

“Why are you touching that?”

Dina scoffed, “your tattoo? Babe, I’ve literally been doing this since I’ve known you.”

“No, not the tattoo. The-,” Ellie took her free arm, the one that wasn’t wrapped around Dina — the one free of ink — and gestured flatly at the scar.

“Your bite?” Dina looked back down and Ellie nodded, and even without seeing, the girl could feel the motion and she smiled. “‘Cause it’s beautiful.”

Dina’s finger gingerly touched the edge of it, barely visible because of the ink that sat above, but with the right shadow, the engravings could be seen.

Ellie laughed, “yeah right, look at it. It’s disgusting, why do you think I had Hank cover it up.”

Dina looked up at her at that, her eyes dark in the quiet of the room, reflecting only that of the TV before them. Minuscule lights compiled to form a whole picture which now shown to Ellie on brown irises. The girl’s expression was hard and pondering. Like she thought Ellie had said the most stupid thing. Like she was trying to figure out how Ellie couldn’t see what she did.

Dina’s eyes flickered down to the arm wrapped around her waist, the one that kept her close to the person whom she adored. They rested there for a second as her grip became more firm around the edges of the scar, and then their deep beings bounced back up to Ellie’s. Who gazed on curiously, apprehensively.

“Without this scar, I never would have met you,” Dina smiled, a small tilt of the lips that Ellie’s recognized instantly. It was the smile that held sincerity — raw honesty from the girl. “And _that,_ is the most beautiful thing I can think of.”

Ellie blushed, her stomach dropping at the words and her teeth shining from a barely concealed smile. She shoved her gently at that, “shut up you sap.”

“Oh whatever,” Dina turned to whisper into Ellie’s neck, placing a lingering kiss against the cool skin — that had the taller girl swallowing, “you love it.”

And _god,_ did Ellie ever.

  


~

  


There are a few communal things that The Dam has for itself. For starters, there’s the lively neighborhood that involves everyone in town, making the place feel as a community of one. Every month they have a town gala in the rec center; with string lights and an operational bar, the place becoming a small room for drinking, dancing, and socializing. And during the summer, falling into autumn, The Dam creates two baseball teams to play each other on the single field they had near Jean’s farm.

Ellie had never been one for sports when she was younger, no one really could be. There weren’t sports in a post-apocalyptic world, there was just survival. But now, now that they were safe, and in a controlled area, now they could relish in the small luxuries.

The two teams were sorted different each year, starting off the season with a random vote of captains. Ellie had been captain last year, and that had brought a whole kind of stress she never wanted to have again. This year, the vote landed on Dina and Teresa, making them the deciders of how the teams would unfold.

Teresa was to pick first in the lineup, after a coin toss. And right off the bat, she picked Ellie, with a snide smirk in the direction of Dina. The taller girl just had to raise her shoulders in apology to the ferocity of the other, who blatantly watched as Ellie walked to enemy territory.

Dina then picked Joel, and as fate would have it, Ellie now had to play against her two favorite people in the world.

She felt a little bad that she would have to pummel them to the ground in victory.

Only a little, though.

  


Dina and Joel were like a match made in heaven on the field. Joel, with his bulky stock and wide frame, always chose to be catcher. While Dina, for some reason, had a knack for pitching.

Pair those two together and you have a deadly duo.

Ellie would often come home to find the two in their backyard practicing. Joel decked in gear and crouched near the fence while Dina stood aways, her arms free in a tank top. The first few times Ellie had come out they’d shooed her away, claiming the enemy wasn’t allowed to sleuth.

But they got used to her after a while, and Ellie was ever appreciative.

There had been a break mid-season, when Dina had been shot and couldn’t play anymore. The two of them stepped out from the games as their teams kept playing. It wasn’t till recently, after Dina’s sling had been removed and she had full mobility that they began playing again — Ellie had warned that they should wait a year, let Dina fully heal, but if that girl wasn’t adamant.

They didn’t tell anyone about their plan to rejoin the teams, they figured they’d wait until the two of them were back into the groove of things. So they practiced on their own in Dina’s backyard, two rivals conspiring together. Enemy and foe, meeting as one.

Dina practiced her pitching while Ellie practiced taking swings at the balls. More often than not, she would be distracted by the girl’s form and get a ball straight to the gut.

Ellie would always glare at Dina for that — because the girl’s aim was spot on. But the shorter girl would just wink and throw another.

One time it had hit Ellie in the ankle and she’d cursed loudly at that. Finally looking up to the innocent looking girl, “I’ve got five fingers here and one of them’s for you.”

Dina had gasped, her feigned innocence taking a toll as she smirked in Ellie’s direction. “Only one? I thought you knew I liked two.”

That shut the girl up quick.

It’s not like Ellie could help it though, getting distracted by the elegant pitcher. Dina was _mesmerizing._ The way she held herself on the field, with such confidence and grace. The way her hand curled around the ball like it was meant to be there. The way her chest would take in oxygen as her arm started the roundup, only breathing out when the ball had left her grasp. Dina’s pitch was breathtaking, which made it hard enough to focus on batting, nevermind the speed — which was also incredible.

The two of them didn’t come out to their teams until a week before the last game. So far, the two teams had been neck and neck. This wasn’t a fools game anymore, the town had grown rigid with the hostility grown between the two groups, and just about everyone was ready to have it over.

They held the last and final game on a Friday, right before October would start and it would grow too cold to play. The wind was heavy, and the clouds were low that day; the outside a lower temperature than they would have liked, but that didn’t stop them.

The teams played their hearts out, stealing base after base, and racking up more points than they had seen in a single game before.

But now it was Ellie’s turn to bat, as the seconds grew to a close on the last inning of the night. The sun had begun to go down as she stepped to the plate, leaving them in a hazy blue of cold. Dina stood before her, forty feet away and a face curled in a smirk.

Ellie chuckled at that, as her feet took their hold beside the plate, Joel to her left and Dina to her right.

Their teams had grown eerily quiet. All that could be heard were her scuffing of sneakers, and the faint whir of tree branches brushing together.

“You got this, baby girl.” She heard Joel’s muffled voice behind her. His mouth covered by the heavy mask.

She scoffed, “I'm the enemy, remember?”

“Maybe, doesn’t mean I can’t support my kid.”

Ellie had to hide her smile at that, and when she was about to respond, a ball whizzed past her bat and landed solidly in Joel’s glove. _Strike_.

Ellie’s jaw dropped at that, she could see Joel’s smug look beneath his mask so the taller girl turned to face Dina again. Whose face wasn’t much better as she winked, and got into her stance again.

She was ready this time as Dina began her roundup, her arm shifting backwards before spiraling. And Ellie tightened her grip on the metal bat. The cold material slippery with the small perspiration of sweat and cold with the breeze that slowly blew.

The ball flew, and Ellie’s eyes watched its path to her, watched as her arms swung and it connected, _hard_. The metal in her hands buzzed beneath her fingertips, radiating pulses down her wrists and she had to clench her teeth at the pain.

But _god_ did that ball fly.

Ellie didn’t even have to take off running, she knew where the ball was going. And as the crowd watched it clear the fence, so did everyone else.

Her team was screaming behind her. The bases, once full, began circling home and Ellie couldn’t hide her ear-splitting grin as she ran after them. Rounding from first, to second, to third, and all the way back to home.

Joel was standing now, and he patted her on the back as she stepped on the plate. Ellie saw as her team began pouring from their dugout in her direction, and she anticipated their arrival, but not before a body slammed into hers.

Dina had run from the pitcher's mound and jumped at Ellie, who caught her with ease. Hands securing the girl on her waist with fingers gripping along the bottoms of thighs. Dina’s legs wrapped around Ellie’s waist and tangled together behind her back, the action drawing a breath from her lips. The taller girl had to stumble back from the unexpected action but she remained upright.

Solid, as Dina leaned close to her, hands wrapping around her shoulders in a hug before pulling away — fingertips ghosting the outside of her cheeks. Ellie was breathing hard as she looked at the girl in her arms. Her eyes so bright, and _proud_. They illumined Ellie.

The two of them were surrounded by their teams congratulating one another, but they were trapped in their own little bubble. Heavy breaths mixing and fleeting glances trying hard to catch one another.

Dina leaned closer to Ellie, she could feel the girl’s warm breath against her lips. “Nice swing, Stretch.”

Ellie nodded dumbly, neither thanking nor denying and Dina giggled — kissing her nose before hopping down and leaving back to her own team. Ellie had to swallow hard as her teammates then enfolded her and Dina was lost to her sight.

She had wanted to kiss her. She had wanted to kiss her right in front of everyone. She had wanted to feel Dina’s lips outside of their home, for _once_.

Ellie’s eyes tracked where Dina’s form had left and her breathing shook.

Why hadn’t _she?_

  
  


That night, after the game had come to a close and everyone has parted their own ways, Dina took Ellie’s hand and quickly dragged the girl home. Her grip was soft but urgent as she pulled the dazed girl along, and Ellie couldn’t do anything but follow.

The moment they had passed the threshold of the house, when they were out of view of the public, Dina turned on Ellie. Shoving her body up against the door they’d just closed and instantly connecting their lips together in a searing kiss. Their teeth clashed at the force, but neither mentioned it as Dina’s hands found purchase on Ellie, as fingers played with her shirt and an incessant pair of lips kept attaching to hers.

Over, and over, in different intensities and angles. Ellie’s mind was bubbling down to mush as the girl against her kept pushing harder and their breathing grew deeper, more strained. Finally, Dina let up as they filled their lungs, foreheads pressed together as their lips struggled for the same air.

“God, I wanted to kiss you so bad in that field,” Dina murmured it against Ellie, _whined_ it. And Ellie giggled because that much had been obvious.

“So, why didn’t you?” She had meant it to be playful. Voicing it in a way that kept the air around them light. But the sincerity of it still slipped through, the _insecurity_.

Dina stuttered and pulled away more as she gave Ellie a quizzical look. Her eyes dark in the house they hadn’t yet lit. “I thought you didn’t want to be public with this.”

_Her?_

“Why wouldn’t I?” Ellie’s gaze was just as confused as the two looked at one another, the atmosphere now deflated as the honesty began to flood.

“You never kissed me.”

Her voice was weak, quiet in the already silent space.

“Well,” Ellie swallowed, her breathing louder than their voices as she tucked some of the hair back behind Dina’s ear. “You never kissed me either, I thought you were uncomfortable with it.”

“You know,” Dina leaned into her, her voice falling flat against her neck as her chest bounced in a tiny giggle. “I think we really need to work on our communication.”

Ellie scoffed, her back shuddering at the ticklish sensation the girl’s words had against the skin of her neck. “You could say that again.”

Dina pulled away once more, and even in the low light, Ellie could see this want of understanding reflecting from blackened irises. “I do want to kiss you, y'know. Everywhere and anywhere. In front of people. Maybe not making out cause that’s a little much but… I don’t want to hide this Ellie. I’m not ashamed of it.”

The taller girl choked at her answer, at what was being presented before her. This whole time she thought _she_ had been the root of the problem. That she hadn’t been good enough, that this wasn’t what Dina had truly wanted. But now, as the girl’s words flooded the space between them, Ellie felt herself choking on the words she wanted to spill to the girl.

“You’re the first person,” Dina kept going after Ellie hadn’t responded. “You’re the first person I’ve ever looked forward coming home to. You’re the first person to make me laugh ‘til I can’t breathe. You're the first person I’ve wanted to touch, wanted to touch _me.”_ Dina’s hand found Ellie’s and pressed it to the shirt at her stomach, palm against the worn cloth against skin.

“You’re the first person I’ve lo- you’re the first person I’ve loved since my parents. And not in the same way of course, because you don’t fall in love with your family but… You’re the first person I’ve _loved,_ Ellie. You're the first-“

Dina’s voice was gasping as she looked up into swirling green eyes. Ones that were crying silently as tears flowed over freckled skin, stinging her cheeks and making her lips taste of salt. “Ellie, I _love_ you. I love you so of _course,_ I want to be seen with you. I’ve never wanted anything else.”

Ellie’s words were still stuck in the back of her throat but she nodded. Slowly at first, and then faster, as Dina’s eyes plead with her own. And because she couldn’t speak, she leaned forward and kissed the girl. Hoping that she could push all of her thoughts through the one motion, through that one act.

Ellie kissed her, pulling lips between her own. Swallowing the soft cries of the girl against her and breathing in the _love_ Dina had poured in front of her. The shorter girls hands chased her body, tugging at her shirt as they grew infinitely closer.

It was only when Ellie realized she hadn’t actually spoken yet that she pulled away. Leaving their bodies close as she stared into the eyes of a girl who’d given her everything.

“I love you, too, Dina. I think I always have.”

  
  


They had found themselves in Dina’s room, in _their_ room, only a short while later. The shorter girl laid beneath Ellie, pushing up into every ounce of touch the freckled girl gave her. Pulling her closer as the two of them couldn’t get enough of the other. Couldn’t _see_ enough, couldn’t _feel_ enough.

Dina’s hands were like ice as they slipped under Ellie’s shirt and her stomach twitched, the muscles there constricting quickly as gentle fingers traced them and circled to her back. The lips against her neck smiled at that, teeth pressing into her skin as Ellie giggled. Because the feeling had sent an unknown shock down to her core.

Dina kept tracing the skin beneath her shirt, and without their mouths connected. Ellie’s harsh breathing and whimpers sounded loud in the room. Echoing off the dark walls and back to the girls tangled on the bed.

The girl under Ellie pressed a kiss to her skin for each of the sounds coming from her mouth. And it made her shudder harder, as it became increasingly difficult to keep herself upright above the girl.

Hands, now warmer from contact, snuck back around to Ellie’s front and traced down her stomach once more, until they rested against her belt buckle and the freckled girl froze. Gasping for breath as she leaned away to look at Dina. Whose eyes, for the first time, looked hesitant with insecurity.

“Are you sure?” Ellie whispered, eyes searching dark and clouded brown ones.

“If you want to.” Dina leaned up again, whispering it against Ellie’s cheek and ear. So Ellie nodded, gently. And the two of them breathed in.

Deft fingers slipped beneath the top of her pants as they worked the clasp of the belt. Undoing its buckle — which clanked while pulling apart — and then Dina had the button undone and the zipper down. Ellie was breathing harder into the girl’s neck, whole body shaking as she kept herself up on her arms. Elbows locked.

Dina leaned back after, kissing her cheek, and then her mouth as murky eyes once again met the forest. Ellie smiled encouragingly and tucked a piece of hair behind Dina’s ear. “You’re so beautiful.”

Dina took the hand against her cheek and pressed a kiss to each of the fingertips. Ellie watched in awe at the tiny sensations she felt against each kiss. The chapped lips and laboring breath. With a final kiss to Ellie’s palm, Dina took the hand between her own and pushed it down. _Down_. Between their bodies, and soon, between their clothes.

  


~

  


The monthly gala their town held was always the last day of the month, which happened to be the night after the big game. Ellie had never gone to them, never saw the interest in getting drunk around the people she worked with and never having the confidence to put her feet on the dance floor.  

But Dina had insisted. Begging her that morning until Ellie had given in, flopping away from the girl in bed as she tried to get more sleep.

The night before had been, _tiring_ , to say the least.

Joel had asked Ellie for help on Jean’s farm that day so she had to say goodbye to the eager girl at lunch, who glared at the taller one and made her promise to show up to the dance. Ellie did.

Jean’s farm was one of the biggest in their settlement and sat on the edge of town, away from most houses and surrounded by the fields kept for her animals. The woman had a decent sized heard of sheep now and almost ten cows — a calf had been born just that summer.

Ellie helped Joel walk the fence line and make repairs where the wire had broken or pulled free. She helped him rake through the dirt and clean the areas most trampled. They fed and watered each pen, helped heard the animals around, cleaned the chicken coops, and did all the work Ellie used to do in a weeks time.

She was absolutely exhausted when they had finished, her arms tired from carrying the fence posts up and down the yard, and her shirt gross with sweat. The sun had dipped to almost none existence by the time she stepped off the farm. And she worried she’d broke her promise to Dina, but the rec center was still buzzing by the time she showed.

The building was used for several communal events, but tonight the fixtures were turned dim and strings of lights littered the ceiling. Giving the room an aura of radiance and glow. Ellie entered in from the side doors, the ones closest to her path from Jean’s and also the ones that opened beside the bar instead of the dance floor.

Which may or may not have been her reason for entry.

Ellie’s eyes tracked the moving crowd, glancing from face to face as she saw couples smiling, fathers swinging their daughters and friends giggling in each other’s arms. The night was _alive_ with amusement and bliss.

It only took a few moments for her to find Dina there as well. Mingling with the crowd as she gradually danced in the arms of a boy she couldn’t quite recognize. Their movements were fluid though, as he spun her around the floor and Ellie’s lips grew at the smile on the other girl’s face.

This place was truly her element.

Ellie spent only a few more moments watching the girl before heading to the bar just behind her. Where her eyes caught Hanks and they smiled at each other in greeting, a nod of acknowledgment. He slid a glass down the bar to her and she picked it up appreciative before turning back to the crowd.

The glass was like ice against her lips and the liquid burned down her throat. Not scorching — but expanding, as it burst down her body and traveled to each of her limbs — settling in her stomach, hanging heavy under her skin.

It didn’t take long for her eyes to find her girl again. _Her_ girl.

Ellie tucked a smile into her glass at the thought as she felt someone come up beside her. Leaning only inches away, it took her but a glance to realize it was Jesse.

The boy had been weird around her for the past couple of months since she’d brought Dina in from the patrol. It was understandable though.

Didn’t mean she still couldn’t mess with the boy.

Man. He wasn’t a kid anymore. Neither of them were.

They both watched the dance floor after a bit, Dina’s movements were still as fluid as ever, but Ellie could see the fatigue taking the girl. How her movements began to cool down from the intensity of it all. The boy Dina danced with gave her a final dip, and Ellie giggled lightly when she finally realized it was Cory.

He really had grown in the last few years.

And then Dina was crossing the crowd to her. Their eyes locked as she smiled at the taller girl leaning against the bar. “Ellie, hey. What took you so long?”

A hand came to her shoulder as the other dipped down to take the glass from her hands and she smiled at the action, “Well I’m here aren’t I?”

“Dina.” She’d forgotten that Jesse still stood next to her and her expression soured slightly.

Dina tipped her head back as the rest of Ellie’s drink vanished, the taller girl struck with the ease she did it with. The glass came into contact with the counter as a steely look was tossed the boy’s way. “Jesse.”

And then brown eyes, underlying grey and swirling with adoration caught her own again and Dina smiled softly, taking her hand between her own. “Come on.”

Music flowed from the corner of the room as they crossed the floor. An easy strumming of guitar and the voice of what sounded like Mary flowing from the few speakers around them. Dina’s hand was warm in hers, tingling with weight and solidarity.

“Hey don’t forget we leave at first light s-so get some rest.” Jesse's voice faded out behind them and Ellie watched Dina give him a mocking salute. Haphazard in the way she strolled backwards before taking the taller girl into her arms.

“You’re such a dick,” Ellie picked at her. Watching the girl walk in front of her. Sweat making the loose strands of hair stick to the girl’s neck.

“Come on,” Dina’s voice was soft again, as she moved her hand up Ellie’s wrist and to her arm, wrapping the two of them behind her back. “Don’t you start with me.”

Hands found their way to Ellie’s shoulders, wrapping loosely as Dina moved them to the music. Like they’d done time and time before in the backyard, but now instead they were surrounded by people instead of silent stars and chirping crickets.

“Okay, I have a very serious question for you,” Dina’s eyes looked at her’s playfully and she smirked, tightening her arms around the girl’s waist with the question. “How bad do I smell?”

Ellie chuckled at that because she’s the one who had just come from working on a farm all day, but she gave in. Leaning close to Dina’s neck and breathing in. The girl still smelled like jasmine, as she always did, but now she also smelled like sweat and like the honey whiskey the two had drunk just before. But it wasn’t bad. It never was with the girl.

She leaned away again, catching the girl’s questioning gaze and giving her a teasing smirk. “Like a hot pile of garbage.”

“Oh? Okay,” Dina pressed their faces together, and Ellie could feel the sweat between their skin but she laughed anyways. Easy giggles coming from the two of them as Dina came back into view, “how ‘bout that?”

“Gross.”

Dina’s laugh slowed and she looked into Ellie’s eyes again. “You love it.”

The shorter girl pulled Ellie close once more, tucking a head against her shoulder as their arms tightened around one another. Dina drawing Ellie closer as the strumming continued around them, mixed with the voices of other neighbors and dancers, mixed with the clinking of glasses and giggles of small children.

Dina held Ellie close, her chin tucking against a sweaty neck. Ellie shuttered against the girl’s touch as a pair of lips gently touched down to the skin there. And the arms around her hugged even closer.

Dina’s sweater was rough against her skin, but delicate in the way its fibers wove. Ellie’s hands stayed together but she spread one out against Dina’s back, feeling for the warm skin that sat beneath as her fingers trailed along the ridges of fabric.

Ellie’s eyes glanced up after that, from where she had her head tucked into Dina’s and she noticed Jesse staring at them from across the room and a sinking feeling settled in her stomach. She took note of the rest of the room and saw several other sets of eyes on them as well. On the girl in her arms more than the two of them together.

She held on tighter as she whispered into Dina’s neck, “every guy in this room is staring at you right now.”

The girl shifted at that, moving her lips closer to Ellie’s ear so she could feel the breath tickle against her skin, “maybe they’re staring at you.”

But Ellie shook her head, dropping her eyes back to the girl against her, “they’re not.”

“Maybe they’re jealous of you.”

Her heart pounded as Dina stayed tucked against her shoulder. Ellie wanted to look at her, wanted to drown in the comfort of murky water and never feel the need to come back for air.

“I’m- I’m just a girl,” Ellie stuttered, her mind swirling down as she tucked closer to the girl in her arms, “not a threat.”

She felt the girl shift under her hands at that, felt her pull back slowly as Dina tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Fingers soothing against her hot skin. “Oh, Ellie.” Eyes flickered between her own. Dancing, and jumping, and evading.

Their proximity had already been close, as bodies pressed against each other in the dimly lit room. As the music flowed in and out, along with the chatter of those around them. But now, as Dina stared up at her. As the gray surfaced beneath brown and Ellie felt herself losing.

Now it was like the breath had left her lungs, it was like her hands had grown numb against the girl and the fingers against her neck were on _fire._ Burning with a passion, with a fiery, for the flaming girl in her arms.

Whose skin was like ice as it scorched her being.

Ellie drowned in the murky waters.

“I think they should be terrified of you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap
> 
> thank you all so much for reading and leaving your lovely comments, those are what truly inspired me to continue
> 
> come hit me up on tumblr at myangelfromouterspace, maybe ill do some dina/ellie prompts if you send me some
> 
> all the love, chris

**Author's Note:**

> song inspiration \\\ https://youtu.be/_KqoE5sZT5A


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